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Complete Story of the 

V^olIinwoodochoolL/isaster 

And How Such Horrors Can Be Prevented 

By Marshall Everett 
The Well Known Author and Descriptive Writer 

Full and Authentic Story Told By Survivors 

and Eyewitnesses 



! E^mbracing a Flash=light Sketch of the Holocaust, 
^ Detailed Narratives by participants in the Horror, 
Heroic WorK of Rescuers, R.eports of the 
Building Experts as to the 
responsibility for the 

Wholesale Slaughter of Children 



Memorable Fires of the Past, E,tc., E,tc. Dangers 

in other School Buildings all over the United 

States. Profusely Illustrated with Pho= 

tographs of the scenes of death, 

before, during and after 

the Fire. 



Photographs of the Children Sacrificed 



Copyright 1908 by The N. G. Hamilton Publishing Co. 

Published By 

The N. G. Hamilton Publishing Co. 

Cleveland. Ohio. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Hecei«e« 
JUL 1 UUb 

7. O t V > 2- 





Nils Thompson, age 9, was a great help to his mother, a widow. 
He escaped by jumping frc^m a window, and after looking unsuccessfully 
for his younger brother, Thomas, went back in for him. 
They both died together. 




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HELENA, WALTER AND IDA HIRTER. 

Children of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Hirter, of North Collamer Street. They were considered 
very bright children. Helena had one of the best records in the United States for attend- 
ance at school, not having missed a day in seven years. They ail died in the 
fire. They were 13, 15 and 8 respectively. 




JAMES, NORMAN AND MAXWELL TURNER. 

The children of Mr. and Mrs. James D. Turner, 436 Collamer Street, and grandchildren of the 

late Robert Scrutton, Oswego, N. Y. Little did they think of the fate awaiting them 

when they left their happy home the morning of March 4th, when they met 

their deaths in the fire. They were 14, 9 and 6 years respectively. 




ANNA AND ROSIE BUSCHMAN. 

Children of Mr. ami Mrs. Leonard Buscliman, 5415 Lake Street, who perished in 
the fire. They were 11 and 9 years of age. 




CLARA AND FLORENCE LAWRY. 

The beautiful twin daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Lawry, of Euclid Beach, Ohio, 
sweet little girls had to be sacrificed in the fire. They were 13 years of age. 



These 



CONTENTS. 



Publisher's Preface 9 

Author's Preface 13 



CHAPTER I. 

Fire discovered in school building at North Collinwood, which 
is filled with children — Futile efforts of the janitor and 
a few of the larger pupils to check the flames — Spread of 
the fire — Alarm sounded ; efiforts of the teachers to march 
the children out of the doomed structure — Beginning of 
the panic — Heartrending screams and shrieks alarm the 
neighborhood as the children find escape cut ofif — Frantic 
rush for the doors, which are closed and check the mad- 
dened little ones in their dash for life and liberty — Chil- 
dren fall in heaps within an inch of safety — Lives 
crushed out as the frantic and terror stricken trample on 
the fallen — Vain efforts of the teachers to stay the awful 
panic — Faces appear at the windows, only to fall back into 
the raging furnace and become part of the fire itself. . . .33 



CHAPTER n. 

Men and women rush to the scene — Mothers fall on their 
knees before the fire and weep and pray — Men curse and 
fight in their efforts to reach their imprisoned little ones 
— Pathetic scenes as dying children call to their parents, 
who are only a few feet away, yet powerless to aid them 
in their agony — Desperate efforts of the teachers to force 
open the doors which keep the children prisoners in the 
burning structure — Thrilling scenes of rescue by ladders 
— Leaps for life — Drops to death and leaps to uncon- 
sciousness — Maimed for life — Blinded by the awful heat 



18 CONTENTS 

— Heroes develop by the score, yet they can do nothing 
to save the scores that are perishing before their eyes. .46 



CHAPTER III. 

Mother saves her child for a moment only to see him die — 
Lad stretches out arms for aid — Tried to drag boy out 
but flames conquered — Cleveland fire fighters arrive but 
are too late — Frantic men and women rush forward to 
meet it — Floors of building collapse with ominous roar — 
Burst of flames and sparks shoot out — Flames rage most 
fiercely in cellar — Work in ruins begins — Blackened 
forms of children in pinafores found — Bodies placed in 
rows in morgue — Identifications made bv trinkets. .. .54 



CHAPTER IV. 

Victims trample comrades to death in vain efforts to escape — 
Walter Kelley, a newspaper man, who lost two children, 
says one of rear doors was locked — Exit jammed full of 
fighting, panic-stricken children — Many killed by being 
trampled on — Scores rush for windows and several are 
killed — Caught like rats — Father and mothers, crazed in 
eft'orts to rescue children — Children rush into fiery fur- 
nace — Hallways too narrow to accommodate scholars 
running out — Three little girls die in jumping 60 



CHAPTER V. 

Fathers and mothers pray and curse as their children perish — 
Maddened, they dash towards flames, to be restrained by 
friends — Force often used — Big man raves, "my babies 
are in the fire" — Firemen with rakes and shovels turn up 
blackened bones and skulls and masses of charred flesh — 
Horror strikes men taking out scarred bodies — Dead 
forms of children passed to ambulance men — Driven to 
to morgue — Human charnal house causes men to shudder 
— Bodies are numbered — Identification made ........68 



CONTENTS 19 

CHAPTER VI. 

Strong men weep as they tell how their children died — Father 
relates how little daughter burned to death — Child helped 
mother with breakfast dishes — Waved good-by as she 
started for school — Sobs on seeing charred babe — "Mister, 
help me out pleads little girl — Baby hands reach out for 
help — White ribbons flutter from doors of almost every 
house — Man toys with penciled paper of dead daughter — 
Baby cries for sister who was dead 72 

CHAPTER VII. 

Flames sweep over hall while women stand helpless — Many 
fall fainting to ground — Water pressure insufficient to 
send stream high — Firemen's ladders would not reach to 
top floors — Task not for volunteers but for ambulance 
men — Police unable to keep back crowds — Girl of ten 
protects brother of six from fire with shawl until both 
perish — Few at top of struggling mass saved — Cries for 
help fearful to hear — Hurl stones through windows — . .81 

CHAPTER VIIL 

School building inadequate to accommodate all pupils and 
many studied in the attic — Pupils become panic stricken 
on sight of smoke — Victims between ages of six and fif- 
teen years of age — Frenzied by screams of crushed and 
dying many rush into death trap — Save scholars by 
smashing windows 85 

CHAPTER IX. 

Pathetic scenes enacted at the temporary morgue — Room 
murky and stifling with odors of burned stufif and silent 
save for sobs — Charred feet protrude beneath blankets — 
Grief written on every face — Mother finds child and bursts 
into tears while strong men join in weeping — Tags placed 
on bodies — Some curse, some gaze stoney eyed upon 
twisted, charred shapes of children before them ; some 
rave like madmen and some laugh like lunatics 92 



20 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER X. 

Rich woman loses baby — Wealthy and poor, alike in grief, 
console each other — Bodies taken from morgue as identi- 
fied — Grief-stricken father fights ambulance driver — Mad- 
dened father would throw himself under a train — Child 
identified by teeth — Screams of despair, wrenched from 
mothers on finding trinkets of babes — Woman who made 
boy go to school overwhelmed with anguish, sobbing and 
shrieking — Crowd sways in sympathy — Grandfather kisses 
girl's feet ' ' 110 

CHAPTER XI. 

Teachers tell of horrors — Attack made on janitor, and police 
guard is set — Tales of the survivors — Children fall and 
others topple over on them — Crush terrible — Door said 
to be usually open, but this time fastened at the top — Few 
fire drills held and smoke and flames quickly put children 
into panic which meant death 120 

CHAPTER XII. 

Girl who discovered fire tells investigators she told janitor of 
the blaze and says she opened door — Janitor asserts build- 
ing was not overheated — County prosecutor listens to tes- 
timony to find whether or not there was a criminal act — 
Door found closed — Never told to ring fire alarm — X( 
boys seen smoking in the building, but girls were plav- 
ing : ^ 128 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Teachers tell of attempts to save pupils and why they are 
unsuccessful — Flames leap over their heads in mad 
scramble for door and children pile up in hall — Blaze tells 
bell is not drill gong — Principal denies there was rubbish 
in closet where fire started — Boy tells thrilling experience 
— Smoke and heat strike terror into children — Fire 
blocks stairs, but heroine teacher waits until last — Crowds 
of men to the rescue but work is checked by fire 138 



CONTENTS 21 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Misery, hopelessness and g-loom reign everywhere in ColHn- 
wood — Little children make big sacrifices — Three babies 
lost from one home — Two white faced girls cling to sob- 
bing mother trying to comfort her for loss of child — 
Bravery of girl — Pall over every house — Frantic women 
tear hair — Small children pushed beneath pile — Narrow- 
ness of corridor catches scholars in pen — Teacher dying 
amid corpses — Exciting race made by firemen — Boy gives 
life to save others — Ambulances do good work 149 

CHAPTER XV. 

Mothers cry for children and beg for help — Teachers pursued 
in rage by bereaved — Child thrown from window — Girl 
saved by sickness — Boy says stairs crashed on crushed 
scholars — Baby cried for *'papa." 177 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Women show courage — Tiny girl holds out hand for help in 
vain — Hands burned trying to save children — Lad identi- 
fied by a ring — Boy who aids family perishes in the fire — 
Lake Shore officials aid — Scream for help which does not 
come — Drags little daughter from heap of dying; .... 182 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Dead in fire disaster buried — Entire village in mourning — 
Hearses line all streets of village — Old man weeps on 
seeing white hearses pass, although he had none in the 
building to die — Full realization of horrible disaster comes 
with funerals — One of saddest services was held for 
Janitor Hirter's children, three of whom died in fire — 
Police guard him, but none molest man while he is bury- 
ing his dead — Father bowed' with grief and mother 
mourns for her dead — Child shows her love for plav- 
mate 190 



22 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Stumps of unknown children are buried — Blackened bodies 
of unidentified dead are placed in one big grave and 
mourned for by many weeping mothers — Flag placed at 
church entrance and candles are put at head of coffin — 
Sixteen white coffins in a row — Service held for 12 at 
once — Hearses too few to care for dead — Two women 
faint — Hundreds gathered in sorrow 197 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Caskets lie in tiers in ambulances — Hearse after hearse passes 
down the dismal streets — ^lany dazed by the tragedy pay 
no heed to funeral corteges — Mothers and fathers bowed 
in anguish — Three caskets with a son and two daughters 
lie in a row 206 



CHAPTER XX. 

Safety of all school children in the land rest in the strict en- 
forcement of the building laws — Better schools urged 
for protection of pupils — Lower buildings, fire proof con- 
struction, wide stairways, fire escapes separated from the 
buildings themselves and opening off every room sought 
— School houses must be carefully and regularly inspected 
— Employes must be watched — Fixing responsibility and 
Dunishment of negligent believed to be a preventive. . .212 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Newspapers comment on the disaster — Tall buildings are de- 
cried — Horror should teach lessons and lead to improve- 
ment of buildings — Disaster might have been prevented, 
it is thought — Probe should go deep and every provision 
made to empty schools quickly and prevent panic — Fact 
should be drilled into the minds of a people prone to for- 
get 221 



CONTENTS 23 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Lack of discipline and unreadiness to meet emergency says 
one paper — Fancied security leads to laxity and danger — 
Furnaces a deadly peril — Close watch should be kept on 
heating apparatus — Automatic doors urged, to open when 
fire gong sounds — Thousands of structures thought to be 
defective and in need of reconstruction 228 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Model school house designed to save children from death in 
fire — Towers at each corner arranged so that there can 
be exits from each room — Emergency exit in center — 
Stairways are not winding but straight 237 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Lest we forget the Collinwood horror we should prick our 
memory to demand better schools — Children depend on 
us for protection which it is our duty to give — Plans 
should at once be made to prevent other such holocausts 
and death of innocents 240 

CHAPTER XXV. 

List of the dead in terrible Collinwood school fire 247 

CHAPTER XXVL 

« 

Earthquake and fire descend upon San Francisco and the Sur- 
rounding cities of California, causing enormous loss of life 
and property— Shock of death comes in the early dawn — 
People flee from their beds in terror to face crashing walls 
— Heaving earth shatters gas and water pipes, releasing 
noxious fumes and kindling countless fires in the ruins of 
the once beautiful "Fairy city of the Golden Gate" — First 
shock followed by worse terrors — Furious flames sweep 
over doomed citv — Firemen baffled bv lack of water — Dy- 



24 CONTENTS 

namite used in vain — Dead abandoned to the advancing 
cyclone of fire — night falls on a scene rivaling Dante's 
"Inferno" — Vandals and ghouls appear — Looting and riot- 
ing add to hellish scene — Police powerless ; troops called 
— Corpses everywhere — Man's utter helplessness demon- 
strated — Denizens of foreign quarter battle with fury of 
fiends — Mobs tight at ferries, while dreary procession of 
refugees trails southward to escape 269 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Wave of flame greets Chicago theater audience — Few realize 
appalling result — Drop where they stand — Many heroes 
are developed — Dead piled in heaps — Exits were choked 
with bodies — Survey scene with horror — Find bushels of 
purses 284 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Terrible Boyertown fire caused by the explosion of lamp used 
to light scenes in amateur theatricals — Scores burned to 
death, suffocated or crushed in mad panic to escape.. . .294 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Boat, the General Slocum sinks in river in New York and 
more than 1,000 perish — Women throw babes overboard 
and leap after them — Life preservers rotten or are filled 
with lead — Bodies washed ashore for days — Jail sentence 
for offenders — Sundav School picnic ends in terror and 
death .' 300 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Thrilling incidents of terrible disasters of historv and horrible 
loss of life '. 304 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Johnstown Flood 316 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 



Amid sobs and groans, from white, trembling lips comes 
the story of the fearful disaster at North Collinwood, Ohio, 
where 172 innocent children and two heroic women 
teachers went down to death in the ruins of the school- 
house, which was swept by flames. To tell the awful story 
in cold type gives but a faint idea of the horror of it all ; 
yet, in order that the lives of other children and other 
teachers may be protected and safeguarded, it must be told 
in detail, and the human suffering and anguish that came 
to men, women and children through this fire painted, as 
only those on the spot can paint it, pictured in words 
that thrill. 

By experience we learn. Some day our children will be 
safe when once inside the schoolhouses of the country — 
but not until public officials realize that many of the build- 
ings are now but tinder boxes, ready to flare up at the 
faintest spark of fire, and destroy all who are unfortunate 
to be caught within the walls. As the author of this work 
has well said, this great disaster has hastened the day 
when all of our public buildings — theaters, halls and 
schoolhouses — will be safe ; when we can rest secure while 
our loved ones bend over their desks, or watch a mimic 
world depicted on the stage. God speed the day when 
soul-harrowing tragedies of the sort enacted in North Col- 
linwood shall be a thing of the past ! 

In presenting this book to the public the publishers do 
so with two thoughts uppermost in their minds. First is 
♦^he thought that the details of the ereat holocaust should 



26 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 

be perpetuated in another way than only in the minds of 
the parents of the children who lost their lives, in order 
that those who read may realize to the utmost that "we 
know not the hour of our end;" and second, that school 
officials and building department heads throughout this 
broad land may realize that upon them rests a fearful re- 
sponsibility. In their keeping are hundreds of thousands 
of human lives — lives of men, women and children, who, 
believing that the buildings are safe, blindly trust them- 
selves in the structures that have been erected for public 
gatherings. 

Lessons like the one from North Collinwood sink deep 
into the hearts of men. It is an old saying that "we never 
learn except by bitter experience" — God knows the offi- 
cials of North Collinwood have learned by sad and bitter 
experience, experience that has robbed scores of homes of 
all the happiness it ever will know, that only by constant 
watchfulness and perfect building methods can safety be 
obtained. Without going into detail as to the responsi- 
bility for this horror — that will be left for those directly 
concerned to determine — it is enough to say that someone 
is to blame for the fearful loss of life and the resultant 
misery that has made heavy the hearts of thousands. 

It is the aim of the publishers to give this book an educa- 
tional value that will secure for it a place in the library of 
every home in the land, and to fill its pages with informa- 
tion and word pictures that will live forever, carrying to 
the heart of every man and every woman the necessity of 
protecting the little ones from the dangers seen and un- 
seen, that threaten them on every hand. It will bring 
home to the thoughtless the fact that "in the midst of life 
we are in death," and that only by securing perfection in 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 27 

the art of building can we properly protect the people 
from possible harm. 

The book contains not only the story of the Ohio dis- 
aster, but the history of other great disasters, thus making 
it a valuable reference work for the student. It portrays 
in vivid manner the causes that lead to great fire panics 
and shows at a glance the large number of human lives 
that have been lost in the various disasters in the several 
corners of the world. Ranking next to the Iroquois thea- 
ter fire in Chicago, in which hundreds of children lost their 
lives — and for which it has been decided in the courts that 
"no one was to blame" — the North Collinwood disaster 
will remain always in the minds of man as one of the 
greatest horrors of the century. 

As this work is the only authentic and permanent rec- 
ord of the horror, wdiich desolated scores of homes and 
brought a thrill of sympathy to the great, glowing heart 
of the world, the publishers hope and believe that the work 
will prove of great benefit, in that it will point out, in tales 
of the utmost pathos and dramatic intensity, the necessity 
for building our schools and our other public buildings so 
perfectly that fires cannot start in them, or, if fires do 
start, so fireproof that nothing but a small blaze, danger- 
ous to no one, will result. 

As this book goes to press thousands of building in- 
spectors, thousands of high officials and thousands of 
school directors throughout this broad land are moving 
with one accord along the line of making the buildings 
safe, and closing those which are found wanting in the 
proper appliances. One lesson of the North Collinwood 
description has startled the world. It is to be hoped that 
no second lesson will ever be needed ! 

THE PUBLISHERS. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



For generations the awful holocaust at North Collin- 
wood, where 172 children and two teachers lost their lives 
in the destruction of the school building by fire, will be 
remembered with feelings of horror. It w^as a veritable 
carnival of death. Caught like rats in a trap, without a 
chance to escape, the hapless victims were trampled under 
foot, smothered, and then half consumed by the fiery 
flames that swept over them. 

The story, sad and thrilling in the extreme, w^ill deal 
wMth the vain fight made by the victims to escape the 
awful fate that awaited them, of the desperate efforts of 
heroic men and women to snatch from the jaws of death 
their own loved ones, as well as the loved ones of other 
fathers and mothers, and of the shocking scenes that were 
enacted in the pretty little suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, on 
the 4th day of March, 1908. Standing beside the red-hot 
embers of the schoolhouse and watching weeping men 
draw from the ruins shapeless masses that were once 
laughing, happy boys and girls, I witnessed a scene so 
terrible that my pen almost refuses to write the sickening 
story of the disaster that brought grief to every family in 
the little village, and which depopulated the town of young 
people. 

Fathers and mothers all over this broad land weep with 
the bereaved parents and bow their heads in shame to 
think that in this trreat and gflorious countrv such a 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 29 

slaughter of innocents could be possible. Long before the 
smoke had lifted from the funeral pyre, long before the 
last charred body had been dragged from the red hot 
ruins, long before the last victim had been laid in old 
mother earth, town and state officials were at work to 
place the blame for the disaster. That blame rested on 
someone was certain, but who was the guilty man? That 
was the c|uestion. 

Fixing the blame would not bring back from the grave 
the 172 human beings that went down to death when 
flames shot through the handsome building, nor would 
placing upon the shoulders of an individual, or upon the 
shoulders of a group of individuals a burden of guilt, 
assuage the grief of the stricken parents, nor dry the tears 
of the people of the country, to whom the horror was 
brought home with startling directness as they thought of 
their own loved little ones in the crowded schoolhouses of 
the cities and the towns. 

From m<^n and women who were on the spot before the 
flames had claimed their toll of death and before the last 
despairing shriek of the last child to die had chilled the 
blood of ?11 the spectators I have obtained most of my 
facts, and to them I am deeply indebted for the vivid 
scenes described in this book, which is destined to be a 
permanent and historically correct record of the most 
awful and sickening disaster ever known in the history of 
the state of Ohio. The task of assembling the vast amount 
of data is not easy, as every line tells of death and human 
suffering, the equal of which is not often written in his- 
tory. True, there have been other great disasters, with 
fearful loss of human life, but in this case those who went 
down to death were children, most of them on the very 



30 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

threshold of life. They had everything before them, no 
regrets back of them — their pathway to honor, fame and 
riches was broad and smooth, yet in the twinkling of an 
eye they were laid low by the fiery hand of Death, and the 
hopes of their parents shattered in an instant. 

While it is the intention of the author to make this 
work a fitting memorial to the dead, and to record the 
details of the tragedy in words that will live forever in the 
minds of thousands of sorrowing persons all over the 
country, it is his hope and firm belief that great good will 
at the same time be accomplished, in that the needs of 
other schoolhouses from one end of the land to the other 
will be shown, and the necessity of at once taking steps to 
remedy the defects, and to render such loss of life in case 
of fire impossible, pointed out. 

Indeed, even as these words are written, officials of 
cities, towns and villages in every portion of the United 
States, aye, even in Europe, are at work, with breathless 
haste, making such changes in the school buildings as 
will give the children there a chance for their lives should 
flames sweep the structures. 

To the many persons who have aided me in preparing 
this work, w^ith a heart full of sorrow for the bereaved 
parents, and a prayer for the dead, I dedicate this book to 
the memory of the victims of the fire which brought the 
nation to its senses and forced it to realize that hundreds 
of its schoolhouses are little else than fire traps, ready 
always to claim the -lives of innocent children. 

MARSHALL EVERETT. 

North Collinwood, Ohio. 



MOTHER DRAGGED FROM CHILD. 

SHE STROKES BURNING HAIR OF DAUGHTER SHE 
COULD NOT SAVE. 

One of the faces in the wall of those who blocked up the 
rear door of the Lake View School was that of Jennie Phillis, 
ag^ed fifteen years. Mrs. John Phillis, who lives a few door:- 
from the school, was one of the first to get to the fire. She 
lecognized Jennie immediately. Volunteers had formed a 
cordon about the door, but the agonized mother broke through 
and rushed into the passageway. 

"Oh, Jennie ! Please come out !" begged the mother. 

*T can't, ma. Oh, help me, if you can !" 

The woman seized both of her daughter's hands and pulled 
with all her strength. She could not, however, drag Jennie 
out from the crush. She turned to the men who were in the 
passageway and begged them to help her. One man pulled 
with the mother at Jennie's arms, but they could not move 
her. 

"It's no use, ma," said the girl, "I've got to die !" 

Mrs. Phillis became resigned to her daughter's fate. She 
held the girl's hand and the two talked for some minutes to- 
gether. The fire crept up through the mass of heads. A 
tongue of it blew over Jennie's head. It began to scorch her 
hair. Then the mother thrust her bare hand into the flames. 
She stroked her daughter's hair and kept the fire away as 
iong as she could. 

"Oh, thank you, ma," breathed the dying girl. It was the 
last she said. They dragged the mother from out of the smoke 
and flame. It was found that her hand with which she had 
stroked the fire from her daughter's head was burned to the 
bone. 




IH 

MEMOKY or 

''''''''%'/M, "I^E UNIDENTIFIED 






-— SlSTTlK/tfC^C) 



:pead 

Clol,L]IiWOOl> 





CHAPTER I. 

THE STORY OF THE FIRE. 

FIRE WRECKS BIG SCHOOL— CHILDREN PERISH 
BY THE SCORE. 

In a horror without parallel in the history of American 
schools, 172 children and two women teachers lost their 
lives when Lake View School, North Collinwood, Ohio, 
burned on the morning of March 4, 1908. Ten minutes 
after the fire was discovered half the families in the pretty 
little suburb of Cleveland were in mourning, and the na- 
tion, informed by telegraph of the soul-stirring disaster, 
was in tears. 

Three little girls coming from the basement saw smoke. 
Before the janitor sounded the alarm a mass of flames was 
sweeping up the stairways from the basement. 

Before the children on the upper floors could reach the 
ground floor egress was cut off and they perished. 

It was all over almost before the frantic fathers and 
mothers who gathered realized that their children were 
doomed. 

School officials believed at first that an incendiary 
started the fire. They were forced to that conclusion after 
eliminating all other possible causes. 

There was no gas in the building. No heating pipes ran 
through the lumber closet under the stairs where the fire 
started. There were no electric wires in the closet. 

With the call for fire engines calls for ambulances were 
sent in. Every ambulance in the eastern end of Cleveland 
was pressed into service and wagons were used to haul the 
dead. 



34 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Rescuers were present by the hundreds, but they could 
not save the Hfe of one of the children jammed in solid 
masses, as in the case of the Iroquois theater fire, Chi- 
cago, at the foot of the stairways. 

The victims ranged in ages from six to fifteen years, and 
the story of their fate is one of the most heartrending that 
the world has been called upon to heed. 

From the minute that the fire bell clanged out the 
alarm, the doom of the children was sealed. 

The building was a fire trap. It was insufficiently pro- 
vided with fire escapes. It had but two exits, one of 
which, at the critical hour, was found to be barred. 

There was lax discipline in the institution. And, finally, 
the fire department of the village was utterly unable to 
cope with the situation. 

Panic was primarily responsible, however. Had the 
300 little ones been able to preserve their presence of 
mind scores that went down in the roaring flames might 
have escaped in safety. As it was, dozens were crushed 
to death before the flames reached them in the terrified 
rush for safety. 

Dozens more were killed in frantic leaps from windows. 
The remainder were swallowed up in the flames, carried 
down into the raging furnace in the cellar of the building 
fifteen minutes after the first alarm was sounded, and while 
agonized parents dashed helplessly about on the outside, 
restrained by force from dashing in when the floors of the 
burning building collapsed, further rescue became abso- 
lutely impossible. 

There was no panic at first. The children on the first 
fioor passed out safely. They supposed it was only the 
regular practice until they entered the lialls. Then they 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 35 

saw the smoke rising from the front stairs. They cast 
frightened glances at it, but maintained order. 

Many of the children on the third floor were saved. The 
flames spread so quickly that by the time the children on 
this floor had entered the hall the smoke and sparks were 
coming up the stairs in great puffs. 

Miss Laura Bodey, who had charge of the single room 
on the third floor, kept her head and started the children 
down the stairs. 

When they reached the second floor the flames rushed 
upon them. 

Miss Bodey called to the children to follow her. She 
led the way to the fire escape through a room on the sec- 
ond floor. 

Most of the children obeyed her and were saved. Some, 
however, had broken away and fled down the stairs. They 
were caught in the deathtrap. 

Nearly all the children on the second floor perished. 
Their teachers led them to the stairs in the rear, for the 
front stairway was enveloped in flames. 

At the sight of the fire the children took fright at once. 
They started pellmell down the stairs and into the narrow 
passage that led to the outside doors. 

The first few escaped. Some of those following tripped 
on the stairs and rolled to the bottom. 

Others behind them ran over the tangle at the bottom 
of the stairs and crowded into the passageway, fell over 
the prostrate bodies and made the confusion greater. 

Then the children began dropping over the banisters to 
get to the passage. Those who had fallen on the stairs 
began to get up and in an instant the entrance to the 
passage was blocked. Not yet had the flames spread to 
the passage. 



36 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Happy in Morning. 

In what contrast were the beginning and the end of the 
day. The morning came with the sunshine of the early 
spring. ^Mothers, starting their children off to school with 
kisses, lingered in the doorways of their homes to feel its 
sweet breath. Out of sight up the street the children passed, 
skipping, laughing, throwing their books at one another in 
the light heartedness of childhood and the joyousness of the 
day. 

The school bell rang; the last of the pupils hurried to their 
rooms. As soon as all were in their seats the day was begun 
with prayer. The echo of the "Amen" died away and quickly 
came the clatter of the schoolroom as classes were begun. 
Scarcely more than an hour had passed, when the alarm of 
fire silenced the droning voices and chilled the blood of the 
teachers, who alone understood. 

The pupils thought it was fire drill and began an orderly 
exit. 

Pupils Saw The Smoke. 

Then someone saw the smoke that came pouring up the front 
stairway and in an instant the orderly lines broke and there 
was a wild scramble for safety. Those who fled down the 
front stairway got out safely. The rush down the back stair- 
way, however, was greater. The first child, close pressed by 
the others, fell as he reached the inner doorway. Those 
coming behind stumbled, went down and barred the way for 
the rest. 

Of the double doors at the bottom of the stairs, one was 
held by a catch at the top. The other was unlocked, but 
closed. The children following the first few who fell had no 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 37 

time to push open the door. Like an avalanche the rest swept 
down upon them, screaming and struggling, the stronger 
trampling the weaker in their frantic desire to get to the door 
only to be themselves borne down. 

Ax Would Have Saved Many. 

Outside the rescuers labored impotently to break the wedge 
and extricate the children. They smashed the glass in the 
partitions on both sides of the door, but the woodwork, ex- 
tending upward about two feet from the floor, balked their 
efiforts. An ax would have saved many lives, but none was 
at hand and none could be found. Men desperately kicked 
against the doors and battered them with their fists until their 
hands were bloody, but it was useless. 

And then, as they began to see how futilely they were work- 
mg, the rescuers saw the flames licking their way down the 
stairs. In the agony of that moment was the sorrow of a 
lifetime. Women fought their way to the doorway, grabbed at 
arms and legs and pulled with a frenzy of the maddened. On 
the top of the heap a little girl lay. Her legs were caught in 
the jam, but her arms were free. She stretched them out im- 
ploringly. 

"Please, somebody, oh please, somebody, get me out," she 
begged. Two women seized her by the arms and strove to 
tear her away from death. Men helped. And then came the 
flames, hot upon the gasping choking pile. They beat back 
the rescuers and in a trice enwrapped the heap. Features 
shriveled at their touch and the life in the little bodies went 
out. 

The news of the fire reached the furtherest corner of Collin- 
wood quickly. From the Lake Shore shops, where the fathers 



38 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

of many of the children are employed, the men ran at the first 
call. Mothers rushed from their homes, their faces white with 
terror. The sight of the burning' building turned dread into 
frenzy. The first few men and women, those who reached 
the school before fire lines were established, seemed to realize 
that with them rested the responsibility of saving as many 
as they could, but those who came afterward, when all hope 
was gone, enacted a heartrending scene. Women beat their 
breasts and tore their hair; men ran about wildly. One mother, 
her only son lost, w^ent insane and, raving, w^as taken to her 
home. Others were too stunned to cry ; they could only mut- 
ter over and over the names of their dear ones who perished. 

Lacking in no possible feature of terror, agony or torture 
was the fire which swept through the crowded school at Col- 
linwood. 

The fire swept through the halls and stairways of the build- 
ing like a whirlwind, laughing at fire drills and attempts at 
discipline. Ten minutes would have cleared the building of its 
population. But the ten minutes were lacking. 

Sw^eeping up under the front stairway the flames cut oflf 
that exit entirely after one room full of pupils had passed 
out. This threw the great seething mass of frightened pupils 
into the back exit of the building. 

In that narrow stairway and vestibule, penned like rats in a 
great trap, poured the mob of children, fighting, screaming, 
pushing. Down on them poured others, jumping down over 
the banisters, climbing over each other's heads, in the last des- 
perate attempt to reach the doorway. 

Nearly all the children were killed in the mass at the first 
floor door. This door was finally opened by men outside, but 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 39 

a wall of flame had formed across it. And most of the chil- 
dren there were already dead. 

A group of distracted mothers fought with the firemen, try- 
ing to drag the bodies from the tangled heap. The father 
of one victim pulled the arms from the little body of his 
daughter in his struggle. 

The homes of people living near the school were turned 
into temporary morgues. 

Glenville hospital cared for seven bodies. 

Fire Finally Out. 

The fire was about out at 1 :30. Firemen still played water 
on the ruins where several bodies were entombed. 

The fire started in the basement from an overheated fur- 
nace. It was discovered by Janitor Fritz Hirter. 

Classes were reciting. 

Thought it Was a Drill. 

Up in the third floor, the attic, the littlest ones were at work. 
Miss Anna Moran, principal, was in her office on the second 
floor when the sharp alarm rang out. She rushed to the door. 

Down the hall long lines of children were marching in 
straight lines. Their teachers were beside them. 

Some of the little ones were laughing. They thought it 
was a fire drill. At the lower floor they saw flames shooting 
up from the basement. They screamed, and there was a rush 
for the front door. 

Miss Catherine Weiler, second grade teacher, was on the 
second floor, and tried to keep her children in line. 

When the rush began she leaped into their midst, com- 
manding them to keep cool. She was dragged into the human 
current of bodies and crushed to death. Miss Grace Fiske, a 



40 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

third grade teacher, tried also to stop the rush. She was fa- 
tally crushed. 

Their heroic efforts were in vain. The vanguard of the 
dreadful rush jammed against the big door. Those behind 
pushed in. 

The first little bodies were crushed into almost unrecogniz- 
able masses. 

One little lad leaped up and walked over the tangled heap 
of bodies to safety. Others tried to follow. They piled up, 
higher and higher, till they suffocated. Most of those near the 
door were not burned to death. They were either crushed in 
the panic or suffocated. 

Cut off from escape by the mass of bodies at the front door 
the children on the second and third floors tried the windows. 
The little ones who were reciting in the attic rooms, were cai- 
ried down the fire escape, many of them. 

Ladders Wouldn't Reach. 

The others, too late, opened the windows and screamed 
piteously for help. 

By this time the Collinwood fire department was on the 
scene. They found their ladders were insufficient to reach 
the third door. The children were trapped, without hope of 
escape. 

It was then that there followed the worst horrors of the 
fire. The little ones went insane with fear and ran down the 
stairs till they met the upsweeping flames, and perished. 

Cleveland Helps. 

Mapes' and Shepard's ambulances had been called. They 
loaded up from the ghastly heap at the front door and dashed 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 41 

away. Hogan's ambulances came, received their freight and 
left, to return later for more. The Cleveland department came 
with its aerial ladder. 

This reached the third floor and many were borne down to 
safety. By this time the flames had mounted to the third 
floor. The first and second floors fell away. At 11:30 only 
the walls of the building were left standing, and the screams 
of the helpless, trapped children, died away forever. 

Crazed by horror, Fritz Hirter, the Janitor, could remember 
little of what happened after the fire broke out. 

Three of his four children in the school were among the 
dead. 

"It was sweeping in the basement when I looked up and 
saw a wisp of smoke curling out from beneath the front stair- 
way," he said. "I ran to the fire alarm and pulled the gong 
that sounded throughout the building. 

"Then I ran first to the front and then to the rear doors and 
threw them open, as the rules prescribed. 

Crazed by the Horror. 

"What happened next? I can't remember. I see the flames 
shooting all about and the little children running down 
through them screaming. 

"Some fell at the rear entrance and others stumbled over 
them. I saw my little 13-year-old Helen among them there. 
I tried to pull her out, and the flames drove me back. I had to 
leave my little girl to die." 

Oscar Pahner, a lad of 11, was one of the heroes of the fire. 
Though his face was terribly burned and he sufl'ered terribly 
from burns on his arms and hands, the boy rushed clear to 



42 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

the Collinwood fire department to inform them of the holo- 
caust. When he found them gone he hurried back to the 
school building and tried to dash into the burning building to 
save his little sister, Edna. 

The boy was in a serious condition at his home. When the 
alarm of fire spread through the building he left his seat in a 
room on the second floor and dashed towards the rear door 
downstairs. 

It was closed by the dead bodies of the pupils. The lad 
then ran into a room on the first floor, broke a window and 
escaped. 

Teacher Dies. 

At the bottom of what was the stairs of Lake View school 
lay the heap of little bones. For it was there almost every 
one of the 39 children in Miss Catherine Weiler's second grade 
on the second floor were killed and under them lay the larger 
skeleton of their teacher who lost her life in trying to save the 
little ones. 

Just before the fire was discovered children were singing one 
of their little songs. The windows were opened to let in the 
sunlight. No one smelled the smoke in the hall. 

Suddenly the school bells rang. ]\Iiss W'eiler rushed to the 
door. In an instant she had the little ones on their feet. Care- 
fully she marshaled them down the stairs, but the entrance 
was clogged. The first floor children were fighting to get 
through. There was no chance, except by the fire escape on 
the second floor. 

She tried to take them back. She pushed them — pulled 
them. They wouldn't go. She then threw them from the 
windows. She stood among them until the stairs fell and 
they were thrown into a heap at the bottom. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 43 

Miss Anna Moran, principal, who was in her office on the 
second Hoor when the fire alarm rang in said : 

"I ran out into the hall and beheld the most pathetic sight 
my eyes have ever seen. The little children were marching 
past my door in perfect order, heads up and feet keeping time. 

"Their teachers were beside them, keeping the lines straight. 
The little ones were smiling and happy. 

"They thought it was a fire drill. 

"A moment later the vanguard reached the first floor. They 
saw the flames leaping up from the basement. They screamed, 
broke ranks and ran for the front door. It would not open. 
The mass turned to the rear door. It would not open and it 
was shut. 

"Those m front tried to open it but the ones in the rear 
pushed against them, and the little bodies were crushed to 
death. Others suffocated. It was too dreadful for words." 

Took Out Children. 

John Leffel, who lives near the school, tells of efforts to 
save the children piled up at the rear entrance. Leffel is 24. 

"I ran to the school when I saw the smoke. The rear en- 
trance, where the storm doors blocked up the arch, was heaped 
up with little bodies. 

"I seized the first children I could reach and dragged them 
out. 

"I was the first there. In a few moments tw^o or three other 
men were workmg by my side. 

"Some of the children seemed half suffocated. Some were 
unconscious. I did not stop to look. I seized them by the 
arms or legs or bodies and tossed them out behind. 

'T guess there were others to pick them up and carry them 



44 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

out of the way. The flames were rushing upon us and I 
knew we had only a few moments left. 

"Some of the children were still piled up in the entrance 
when the heat and smoke drove us back from them." 

A. Hansrath, clothier, whose store was near the school, 
arrived when children were jumping from the windows. He 
caught three who jumped from windows of the second floor. 

Others were caught in the arms of two or three men who 
stood near him. 

When the flames were discovered the teachers, who seem 
to have acted with courage and self-possession and to have 
struggled heroically for the safety of their pupils, marshalled 
their little charges into columns for the "fire drill," which 
they had often practiced. 

Unfortunately the line of march in this exercise had always 
led to the front door, and the children had not been trained to 
seek any other exit. The fire came from a furnace, directly 
under this part of the building. When the children reached 
the foot of the stairs they found the flames close upon them, 
and so swift a rush was made for the door that in an instant 
a tightly packed mass of children was piled up against it. 

200 Maddened Children. 

From that second none of those who were upon any portion 
of the first flight of stairs had a chance for their lives. The 
children at the foot of the stairs attempted to fight their way 
back to the floor above, while those who were coming down 
shoved them mercilessly back into the flames below. In an 
instant there was a frightful panic, with 250 pupils fighting for 
their lives. 

Several parents succeeded in getting hold of the out- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 45 

stretched hands of their loved ones, but they could not break 
the grip that held them from behind. When the fire finally 
reached the prostrate mass, there was nothing to do save to 
take one last look. 

Death Fight is Heart Rending. 

The shrieks of the entrapped children, agonized, blood chil- 
ling cries, died away. There was a gurgle of sound — then 
quiet. For a few moments the rescuers were powerless to 
move, stunned into silence. Suddenly a grey haired man 
dropped to his knees in the mud. 

"Oh, God, what have we done to deserve this?" he moaned, 
with arms outstretched toward heaven. 

Women, bareheaded and breathless, came running across 
the fields. They sought their children. They had not yet 
reached the building when they saw the old man kneeling. 
As of with one thought they threw themselves down in the 
mud and prayed to God to spare their little ones. As the 
words rose the dull sound of the fire engine came back as if 
to mock them, and the hissing of the flames as if to sneer at 
their misery. 

When darkness fell Collinwood was bereft. Crushed and 
awed, it lay under a pall of sorrow. Here and there silent 
figures moved. The day of doom was nearing an end — there 
were no more tears left to shed, little more consolation 
feft to give. If the neighbors met it was not to say, "How 
sorry I am," but "How many have yovi lost?" Few the 
homes where death did not strike through relatives or friends. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE WAY OF ESCAPE BLOCKED. 

CHILDREN CROWD INTO PASSAGEWAY, 
WHERE THEY ARE DESTROYED. 

When the fear-maddened children first wedged into the 
passageway that led to safety they were all standing. 

But the others surged from behind and as those in front 
struggled to free themselves they fell. This continued 
until the passage was blocked to within a foot of the top. 

Only the faces of the children could be seen from the 
outside. Behind the human partition were scores of other 
children crowded against the barrier in a moaning huddle. 

Then the fire swept down upon them and they perished 
as their helpless and frantic parents looked on. 

An alarm had been turned in. and the news of the fire 
having spread through the village, fathers and mothers 
came rushing to the schoolhouse, screaming, smashing at 
the windows, hurling themselves against the doors, and as 
frequently being forced back by the intense heat which 
the flames threw off. 

There were but two fire engines in Collinwood and they 
proved practically useless. The ladder company was of 
no use, its ladders failing to reach the windows where the 
imperiled children were trembling on the brink. 

A frantic message was sent across the wires to Cleve- 
land: 

"Send help. Collinwood school is burning." 

And the crush at the door of the schoolhouse grew in its 
monstrous proportions, while the flames burned steadily 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 47 

on. It was here that dozens of acts of heroism were per- 
formed that shine out in the awfulness of the scene. 

Andrew Dorn, who lived in the neighborhood was early 
on the spot. He had a daughtef in the school. As he 
reached the door he staggered back in horror. 

In some way the door had been forced open a few inches 
- — just a few pitiable inches, through which nothing but a 
frail little child could thrust its hand. The man faced a 
score of these little hands, torn, mangled, bleeding, 
stretched out in mute supplication, while from behind 
there came the saddest chorus that man has ever heard. 

Dorn hurled himself against the door. Others joined 
him in the effort. The weight of a dozen men against the 
stout oak paneling sufficed only to move it an inch at a 
time, for behind it were the compact bodies of a hundred 
children upon whose slender bodies the flames were al- 
ready feeding. 

But they got it open finally, and among the mass of 
agonized faces that gazed beseechingly at Dorn was that 
of his own little daughter. 

With a maddened cry he plunged into the mass. Move 
it he could not, though his daughter's voice weakly ap- 
pealed to him. In his frenzy he seized hold of her arm and 
pulled and pulled. 

The flames were already upon them, and he succeeded 
only in pulling the child's arm from its socket. She fell 
back into the struggling mass, and he saw her no more. 
Dorn fled with a piercing shriek. 

Wallace Upton also had a child in the school. He was 
in the band of heroes with Dorn, and he remained there 
with the fire leaping over him until he was carried away 
with fearful burns. 



48 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

He did not know that he saved his child and with her 
eighteen others, whom he dragged from the mass of vic- 
tims, one at a time, and passed out to the eager helpers 
who thronged the place. 

All the while the Collinwood firemen were doing their 
best, and the frantic mothers and fathers and other rela- 
tives and friends of those in the burning building were 
dashing about practically helpless, praying for the appear- 
ance of the Cleveland fire fighters. 

By the windows above, when the wind would clear 
away the smoke temporarily, the faces of the children 
could be seen in a background of flames. 

Now and then one of them w^ould fall or leap out. Again 
there would be cries of "Hold on." 

Ambulances clanged up — scores of them, and automo- 
biles, wagons, carriages — all pressed into service to carry 
ofif the dead and injured as they were picked up from 
beneath the walls or dragged out of the mass that still 
struggled at the half-open doorway. 

The Lake Shore Railroad shops were shut down and 
the employes sent over to join in the work of rescue. 
Other employes followed suit. 

The flames were bursting from every opening in the 
building. Mothers and fathers who strove to rush into 
the building had to be restrained. 

One big man, his eyes glaring fiercely, broke away time 
after time and sought to enter the structure. 

"My kinder are there," he shouted. Bystanders finally 
had to throw him down and hold him to prevent him from 
going to his death. 

Still no ladder, no skill in fire fighting — and every min- 
ute meaning the loss of another human life. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 49 

The second floor contained the rooms of Miss Catherine 
Vx'eiler, second grade teacher, who was crushed to death, 
JMiss Lulu Rowley, third grade; Miss Mary Gollmar, fourth 
grade, and Miss Anna Moran, principal and sixth grade 
teacher. 

The top floor contains an auditorium, an attic and the fifth 
grade, taught by Miss Laura Bodey. One fire escape de- 
scended from the auditorium down the north side of the 
building. 

Each of the rooms contained from thirty to forty children. 
Miss Fiske had forty-four, Miss Weiler thirty-nine. Miss 
Rose had the smallest children, those who started to school 
three weeks ago in the middle of the year. 

The heaviest losses came in the rooms of ]\Iiss Moran, the 
principal ; Miss Gollmar, Miss Rowley and Miss Lynn, Miss 
Fiske and Miss Weiler, where nearly three-fourths of the chil- 
dren perished. These were the children who attempted to get 
out by the fearful back stairway. The casualties were lowest 
among the youngest children on the first floor and Miss 
Bodey's whose pupils came down by the fire escape. 

Parents Hurry to School. 

Miss Rose Lynn and Miss Irvine started to lead their pupils 
out by the front entrance, but were driven back by the flames 
before more than half of them got away. Holding the little 
ones in check as much as they could, they led them back into 
the rooms, where they helped them from the windows. 

Neighbors and parents hurried to the school building, where 
they caught the pupils as they jumped. Heroic rescues and 
narrow escapes become commonplace, as the friends and par- 
ents fought for their little ones. 



50 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

On the second floor the teachers tried to take the children 
down the front and back stairways. Those who tried the first, 
liurried them to the back to find the passage blocked by hun- 
dreds of children, already beginning to mass and get blocked 
up. 

Then ensued the dramatic fight of the day, the children 
struggling for the back stairways, the teachers trying to con- 
trol them, and trying in vain. ]\Iiss Gollmar got a few of 
her pupils back into her room and got down the fire escape 
with them. The other teachers, except the two who were 
killed, got out that way. 

But the children, uncontrollable, jumped and threw them- 
selves over the stairways on the mass below. The pressure 
from behind carried all those ahead down to the first pit. 
The sea of children surged and beat and stormed against the 
doors below. 

With the first call of fire came a call for help and relief. 
Every ambulance company in Cleveland and Collinwood sent 
every available wagon to the fire. Inspector Rowe sent out 
a detail of police under Capt. Schmunk and Lieut. Doyle of 
the thirteenth precinct. 

When the fire gong sounded at the Lake Shore shops, the 
foremen ran into the shop crying: 

"The schoolhouse is on fire. Everyone who has any chil- 
dren drop his tools and run for the building." 

Cried, "Jump, Jump." 

Men and women tried to rush into the building to rescue 
the children, but were driven back. Others stood underneath 
windows and encouraged the little ones to jump to their arms. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 51 

Finally the police established a fire line and began the work 
of rescue. 

As the flames receded from the rear end of the building they 
exposed a great charred mass. Around it were blackened 
rafters and ashes and charred wood. 

The ambulances lined up in a great semi-circle around the 
back of the building and the drivers assisted the firemen in 
recovering the bodies. While part of the workers shoveled 
away the debris, the others felt around in the water with 
their rubber boots for the bodies. As fast as they were found 
they were hoisted out and hurried to the temporary morgue. 

Fire Department Late. 

The alarm of fire was rung at 9 :45 o'clock in the morning. 
Twenty minutes, according to the accounts of those who were 
witnesses, elapsed before the department arrived. 

The equipment of the village fire department was one en- 
gine, one hose company and a small ladder truck and one 
team of horses. There were no regular firemen and only 
twenty volunteers. 

Other horses were impressed into service and the fire de- 
partment was sent to the schoolhouse. The chief of the local 
department, George C. Hammel, was at work in Cleveland at 
the time of the alarm. He arrived one hour later. 

When the fire department arrived firemen say that the 
pressure was too light to supply the two lines of hose. 

An alarm was sent in by a woman to engine house No. 7 
in Cleveland. Chief W^allace was telephoned and he imme- 
diately ordered engine company No. 30 and a truck company 
to respond to the alarm, under the command of Battalion 



52 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Chief Fallon. The first equipment to arrive from Cleveland 
was the engine, a hose cart and an auxiliary truck. 

Robert GalloTvay, an employee of the Lake Shore shops, 
who was present at the fire soon after its start, said that 
twenty minutes elapsed before any firemen were on the 
scene. 

John \\'arson was the first Collinwood fireman to mount a 
ladder. Smoke overcame him and he was taken down in a 
comatose condition by his comrades. 

"The outer doors at the back of the building were open, 
both of them, but one half of the double inner doors was 
closed," said Patrolman C. L. ^^^ohl, of the Collinwood de- 
partment. "The inner door was opened before the children 
became wedged in, how^ever. The narrow corridor is what 
caught them. 

"I rushed into the little outer halhvay with Mr. Down and 
attempted to pull some of the children out, but it was of no 
use. I couldn't move one of them. Three times I tried to 
get them, but the heat was too great. 

Into A Fiery Furnace. 

"I pulled my thick hat down over my ears, turned up my 
coat collar and went in again. It was terrible. The fire was 
coming out over the children in a solid wall. As I think of it 
now^ I can't remember hearing them scream, although I re- 
member the aw^ful pain reflected in their faces." 

"Miss Gollmar, a teacher, tried to rescue the children, too 
but I held her back. If I hadn't she, too, would have been 
burned." 

Wohl's hat was burned on the top where he had held his 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 53 

head down toward the fire, his coat was scorched, and his 
hands blistered, mute testimony to his unavailing bravery. 

Miss Pearl Lynn, teacher of the first grade on the first 
floor, had a narrow escape from death. She was among the 
few who were pulled from the heap at the foot of the rear 
stairs. Most of her pupils perished. 

"The fire gong sounded at exactly 9 :30 o'clock as the classes 
were changing," she said. "The children stood up at once, 
thinking it was simply for fire drill. I gave the order to 
march, but when the doors opened into the corridor, smoke 
rushed in. 

Rush for Rear Exit. 

"The children all ran for the rear exit. Children from the 
second floor were tumbling down the stairs and blocking the 
way. My children crowded into them and so did those from 
two other rooms on the first floor. Miss Rose's pupils were 
the only ones in the school who escaped through the front 
door. Flames shooting up from the basement shut ofif the rest 
and they all rushed to the rear. 

"I saw that one of the doors was shut and tried to get to 
It, but was borne down by children crushing from above. Miss 
Rose tried to unlatch the door but failed. Then Mr. Hirter, 
the janitor, came and forced it. I knew nothing after that un- 
til Mr. Dorn dragged me outside." 

Escapes with Coat. 

"I heard three bells. Then I got my coat, hat and rubbers, 
climbed out of the window to the fire escape, ran down one 
story and jumped." 



CHAPTER III. 
A MOTHER'S AGONY. 

MOTHER SAVES HER CHILD FOR A MOMENT, 
ONLY TO SEE HIM DIE. 

Across the street from the burning building lived Mrs. 
Clark Sprung. Her boy was in the school. When she 
arrived on the scene at one of the windows she saw the 
face of her son. He stretched out his arms for help. The 
mother ran across the street and secured a stepladder 
which she placed against the wall. 

Climbing up, she reached out and was barely able to 
catch the boy by his hair. With all her mother-strength 
she sought to drag him to safety, but at the moment of 
victory the fire conquered. It burned the boy's hair off 
in her hands and the lad fell back into the flames. 

Tragedies like these, acts of daring bravery, of sacrifice, 
abounded on every side, while the fire swiftly spread the 
pall of death over nearly every home in the village. 

Suddenly a shout of joy went up. The Cleveland fire 
fighters had been sighted, in the van the ladder wagon, 
with ladders that would reach those above. The driver 
was on his feet, lashing his horses into a mad gallop. 

A hundred frantic men and women rushed forward to 
meet it. They did not wait for the apparatus to stop. The 
ladders were dragged off and eager hands carried them 
forward, but — 

Again, in the hour of victory, the fire conquered. It had 
not been burning more than half an hour. There were 
still many precious lives that might be saved — they were 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 55 

in the windows above there, little ones, six years old, 
seven, eight, with arms outstretched. Ten minutes before 
there had been a chance. 

Now, as the rescuers were in the act of rearing up the 
ladders, there came an ominous roar, a burst of flame, a 
shower of sparks, and the floors of the building collapsed. 

Those who heard the wail — low, plaintive, yet piercing 
— will never get the terrible ring out of their ears. It was 
the requiem. 

It rose above the crack of flames, the crash of timbers. 
With it went all hope of saving any life that still remained 
in the building. Down there in the cellar the flames raged 
most fiercely. 

From the crowd came in response an echo of agony and 
despair. ]\Ien and women gathered about in weeping 
groups while the firemen poured water on the flames. 

Another hour and it was possible to begin work in the 
ruins with picks and delve in the blackened mass for the 
little ones in pinafores and Norfolks who three hours be- 
fore, kissing mamma good-bye, with "shining morning 
faces, had crept unwillingly to school." 

Firemen and employes from the Lake Shore shops 
turned morgue keepers. The railroad company turned 
over one of the buildings nearby to be used as a tem- 
porary morgue, and thither the charred and broken little 
bodies were removed as fast as they could be dug from 
the ruins. 

They were placed in rows in the railroad shop. Identifi- 
cations were made only by means of clothing or trinkets. 
The fire had swept away nearly all resemblance to human 
features in the majority of instances. 

A line of men was formed, backed by half a dozen 



56 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

ambulances. As the bodies were untangled from the debris 
they were passed along to the stretchers and thence to am- 
bulances. 

As fast as a load was obtained it was driven away to the 
improvised morgue, to be succeeded by another within a 
short time. 

The hour had come to count the cost of somebody's blunder 
— "ten at a time." The cost was reckoned in the lives of little 
children, and the first squad of ten fathers and mothers w'ere 
let through the big gate to the Lake Shore shops. 

The cost was tabulated neatly, ready for the counting — 
rows or rows of charred bodies wrapped in blankets and laid 
out on the floor of the warehouse. 

Ten at a Time Seek Dead. 

Ten fathers and mothers counted the cost, and their places 
were taken by ten more fathers and mothers, and ten more, 
and yet ten more, until the awful tale was told. 

By 4 o'clock 165 bodies had been brought to the warehouse, 
and many identified. 

But to go back a little while. The Lake Shore shops at Col- 
linwood have been called the model railroad shops of the 
world — the biggest and the best. 

Wednesday morning every department there was running 
smoothly m its accustomed groove. Word came that the 
schoolhouse had been burned down and that all or nearly all 
the children had died in the flames. At a signal every wheel 
in the model railroad shop stopped. And every superintendent 
and foreman of every department took advantage of the lull 
to make a short speech. They were all practically alike, and 
were as follows : 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 57 

"Men, the school is on fire. Some of you have children 
there. There will be no more work today." 

A machine shop foreman in overalls came running to the 
warehouse with a verification of the first reports. 

"Hardly a one got out alive," he said. "I just came from 
there. It's bad enough when grown folks die,, but when it's 
kids — yours and mine — little kids that were laughing and 
whispering and studying their lessons only an hour ago " 

He did not finish. 

Already order was taking the place of disorder. A master 
mind somewhere had taken command. The system that 
makes this the model shops was working with the same 
efficiency on a labor of humanity. 

A railroad shop contains everything a railroad can possibly 
need. And that means everything. It even means stretchers 
and sheets and blankets, for railroads have their share of dis- 
asters. 

And it was providential that these things were to be had 
and that a master mind was there to order their distribution. 

The company's physician, Dr. Williams, was among the 
first at the fire. He ordered the removal of the bodies from 
the smoking embers to the warehouse. 

Ambulances Busy at Grewsome Task. 

The ambtilances galloped back and forth until their horses 
were white with lather. The bodies were laid in rows on the 
ground floor, between the shelves and heaps of castings, and 
covered with blankets. 

A railroad man was given charge of each row. On the sec- 
ond floor a temporary hospital had been established, with 
four nurses. Then when everything was in readiness, the 
word was given to the gate tender. 



58 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

And ten at a time they came, while the great crowd with- 
out pressed their white faces against the pickets and waited. 

There was an escort at the gate to take them to the ware- 
house. They entered by a certain door. The escort changed, 
and they inspected first this row, next that one, and so on, 
to the last body in the last row. They went out by another 
door and through the gate, and ten more came. 

With them went men who checked off names on lists, and 
when a body was identified it was covered with a white sheet. 
By night time there were more white sheets than blankets. 
And so the cost was counted. 

A woman came, wild eyed and breathless. She all but 
stumbled over a body. The row stretched from wall to wall. 
She steadied herself and w^ent resolutely to the task. 

Shuddering, she passed from form to form, until she came to 
the next to the last. A suspender buckle glistened in a mold 
of burned cloth. 

First Victim to be Identified. 

Voiceless, she bent and picked it up and kissed it. 

And the name, "Mills Thompson." was checked off the list. 

Another woman came. "That's Flenry's sweater," she said, 
and a check mark was placed after the name of Henry Schultz, 
nine. They would have led her away, for there were grew- 
some sights that were not good to see, but she said : 

"That's only one," and went on looking^ 

A man came, leading a little girl by the hand. The man 
walked with averted face. "I dare not look." he said. 

But the little daughter was braver. The search was long, 
and the child's face was white and drawn when it was finished 
and she said to her father: 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 59 

■'This is Irene's skirt, daddy." 

And Irene Davis, fifteen, was numbered among the iden- 
tified. The identification was made by her younger sister, 
Helen. 

The work of identification was necessarily slow. In rare 
cases were the faces of the dead recognizable. The identity 
of most could be told only by the clothing, and perhaps a 
dozen bodies were nothing but charred flesh and bone. 

An aged Polish woman searched for her dead boy. In her 
haste she brushed others aside. "Leave me alone," she said. 
"Do you think I would not know my boy?" 

Woman Keeps Courage to End. 

So they left her alone until they found her crouched at the 
feet of a blackened and shapeless thing that once had been a 
boy of ten. On its breast lay a silver watch. The woman 
knew the watch, because it had been her husband's, who was 
dead. It had gone to the boy as a legacy. She moaned and 
shivered on the floor. 

Another woman, cast, perhaps, in a different mold, marched 
unfalteringly along the rows of bodies. Her husband followed 
her. In his eyes were tears ; in hers none. Both were well 
and fashionably dressed. 

Presently she halted and pointed with a gloved hand. The 
man nodded miserably. The woman, in the calmest of voices, 
instructed an undertaker concerning the disposition of her 
son's body. Her face was expressionless and stony. 

"Come on," she said, and turned away, followed by her 
husband. 

But when they reached the outer air she fainted dead away. 



CHAPTER IV. 

IN THE DEATH STRUGGLE. 

VICTIMS TRAMPLE COMRADES TO DEATH IN 
VAIN EFFORTS TO ESCAPE. 

Walter C. Kelley, a newspaper man, two of whose chil- 
dren were in the building, was one of the first upon the 
scene. 

He said the rear door, one of the two exits, was locked. 
The children rushed for the front and rear doors. The 
front exit soon was jammed full of fighting and panic- 
stricken children. 

Many who reached the exit first escaped, but those, the 
greater number, who followed choked the doorway. 

Those who fell were trampled upon, and many were 
killed in this manner. Those behind turned and made for 
the windows. Some upon the second and third floors 
jumped from the windows and escaped. 

In this way three or four were killed while others were 
more fortunate and escaped WMth slight injuries. 

The greater number of those who met death were cut 
off from escape by the smoke, which blinded them. 

Caught like rats in this manner, they fell with the lower 
floor, amid the blazing timbers, to the basement below. 
There the little bodies could be seen writhing in their last 
death struggle. 

A few minutes after alarm was given the school was 
surrounded by fathers and mothers, who were frantic in 
their dazed efforts to rescue their children. Very few 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE bl 

were saved from among the children who were behind the 
jam at the front door. The others escaped with slight 
injuries. 

The fire from the basement, in addition to filling the 
schoolrooms with smoke, which caused the first alarm, 
leaped up the stairway to the first, second and third floors. 

When the children rushed from their rooms to the hall- 
ways they rushed into a fiery furnace. It was in the hall- 
ways and at the main exits where the greatest number 
met death. 

The hallways were narrow and could not accommodate 
the large number that attempted to rush through them 
to reach the main door. 

Three little girls met instant death in attempting to 
jump to safety from the third floor of the burning build- 
ing. They were ]\Iary Ridgewa}^ Anna Roth and Ger- 
trude Davis. 

The greatest loss of life was caused by one of the exits 
being closed, to wdiich point scores of the children rushed. 
Their escape was blocked by a door that is, it is charged, 
opened inward. 

In this manner they were delayed in reaching the other 
door and windows. It is believed that as a result of this 
stampede alone scores of children lost their lives. 

After the fire had been somewhat reduced piles of 
charred little bodies were still visible in the doorways. In 
the rear door bodies burned beyond recognition lay piled 
five feet deep. 

A man who reached the school building shortly after 
the fire broke out declared that the back door was locked. 

He attempted to break down the door, but failed to do 
so. He then smashed in the windows with the aid of 



62 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

other men and rescued a number of children by dragging them 
out. 

The flames shot up throusj^h the central halls with terrible 
rapidity. The children were terrified beyond all control and 
the teachers, although they struggled bravely to marshal their 
charges out of the building in something like order, were 
utterly helpless. 

Those who were familiar with the building and were early 
on the scene'believe that most of the loss of life was due to 
the fact that all of the rooms were dismissed at once. 

Pupils pouring down the stairs made for the doorways, al- 
ready full of children escaping from the lower floors. The 
exits were soon choked. 

The desperate ones behind pushed and struggled for their 
lives, driving the human wedges the tighter in place. 

Persons living across the street, who were the first to reach 
the burning building, said the lower halls were already filled 
with flames when they arrived. 

Thev helped out such children as they could reach, but were 
forced to see many beyond their aid perish miserably. The 
doors and windows were packed with terrified little ones, 
whose panic left them helpless to escape. 

Man\- children descended the fire escapes, but feared to 
jump on reaching the bottom. They were pulled down to 
make room for others. 

"As long as T live I will remember the terrible scene that 
confronted me. the despairing little children, arms out- 
stretched, begging for protection from the awful wall of fire 
that was sweeping down on them," declared Mrs. W^alter C. 
Kelly, as she turned, heartbroken, from the long line of dead 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 63 

at the improvised morgue, where she and her husband were 
searching for the bodies of two of their children. 

Mrs. Kelly was on her way to Willoughby with a contractor, 
where Mr. and Mrs. Kelly intended building a summer bunga- 
low. Mr. Kelly, who is marine editor of the Cleveland 
Leader, recently moved into Collinwood and their children had 
not been attending the school long. As Mrs. Kelly was about 
to cross Collamer avenue a little girl rushed up to her. 

"'Fire, school fire," was all the breathless and frightened 
little one could say. 

Sees Smoke Arising. 

"I looked back at the school house," said Mrs. Kelly, "and 
saw smoke, and knowing my little ones were in danger I ran 
to the building and joined a frantic and screaming crowd of 
men and women at the rear of the building who were trying 
to rescue some of the pupils. I pushed my way to the front 
and found children jammed in a mass in front of the door. 
There they stood, arms outstretched, the flames beating down 
upon their heads and swirling about their bodies. 

"They were silent, most of them. The heat had become so 
intense when I arrived that they were stifling and their agon- 
ized screams were stilled. The outside doors of the vestibule 
were wide open, but the inner doors were closed. 

"The panels had been broken out and we could reach 
through and seize the children. 

Children Piled Up. 

"The lower part of the doors were intact and behind them, 
piled up almost breast-high, were the children. 

"It was terrible to think that we could reach them with our 
hands and yet were unable to drag any of them out. 



64 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"The little ones looked up into our faces and the mute appeal 
and agony expressed in their countenances I never will forget. 

"I seized one little girl by the hands and pulled. Her hands 
were blistered and burned and presented the appearance of 
raw beefsteak. 

"I exerted all my strength, but she was wedged so fast in the 
mass of children that her flesh slipped through my hands. 

"Despite every effort those who were frantically trying to 
rescue the children failed utterly. 

Couldn't See Her Own Boy. 

"The hair of most of the children was burned off, their 
clothes were afire ; their faces, upturned, were glazed over by 
the furious blast of flame which poured over their heads, and, 
with hearts wrung with agony, we were forced back from the 
door and stood idly by as the little ones perished. 

"It was awful, a terrible sight. I knew that while T stood 
there trving ineffectually to aid the doomed tots my Richard 
was there. I could not see him. but I am sure he saw me." 

Late in the afternoon ]\Ir. and Mrs. Kelly identified the 
body of Walter C. Kelly. Jr.. seven years old. The body of 
the older boy, Richard Dewey Kelly, ten years old. also was 
found at the morgue. 

Of their three children only the youngest, Gilbert, too young 
to attend school, survives. 

Breaks News To Wife. 

John Leonard walked homeward from the Lake Shore 
morgue where on a stretcher, among the dead, lay his two little 
ones. His step was slow and tears coursed down his cheek. 
He was thinking how he could break the news to his wife. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 65 

"She has a weak heart," he sobbed. "It may kill her." 

As he neared the house he forced a smile. Three little 
nieces came to meet him. 

"Where's Louise?" asked a 5-year-old. 

Leonard lost his self-control and burst into tears. He 
mounted the steps. 

"They're dead — my babies are dead," he cried. 

Mrs. Leonard screamed and fell fainting into her husband's 
arms. 

With a wild cry, Leonard reeled, and, his wife in his arms, 
fell to the floor. He, too, had fainted. 

All The Teachers Heroines. 

There were nine teachers in the Lakeview school. Two of 
them died with their children. They were Miss Katherine 
Weiler, 2217 East 81st street, and Miss Grace Fiske, Orville 
avenue, Cleveland. 

Miss Fiske died among the first, shielding the little six-year- 
old first grade pupils in her charge from the flames. 

Her room was burned first of all. Some of the children 
escaped through the window, and she could have done so, but 
insisted on waiting until her charges, or some of them, could 
be saved. 

Sacrifices Her Own Life, 

Miss Weiler deliberately plunged into the struggling mass of 
children on the stairway, though she knew the way to safety, 
and rendered up her life in exchange for the safety of a score 
of little ones, whom she bodily hurled back toward the fire 
escape, down which they fled. 

The last seen of her was, as her clothing blazed, she re- 
peated : 



^ THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Quiet, children, quiet : go back to the fire escape." 

Then she died. 

Miss Pearl Lynn, another teacher, was pulled from beneath 
the mass of children by Patrolman Wahl, and carried away un- 
conscious. 

Miss Ethel Rose, teacher, saved all but three of her Z7 pupils, 
and escaped herself. 

Loses Half Her Flock. 

Miss Ruby Irwin lost half of her flock. She ordered them 
to rush through the flames to the front doorway. 

Those who refused stayed back — and died. All who fol- 
lowed her escaped unscathed. Her judgment had been good. 

Misses Moran. Gollmar and Rowley escaped through the 
windows of their rooms. 

Miss Laura Bodey alone maintained the order of the fire- 
drill, and standing on the fire escape, after flight through the 
halls was rendered impossible, lifted her children to safety. 

Only five or six of hers perished, and those broke from 
the lines and leaped into the death-trap at the foot of the 
stairs. 

"We had been having fire drills about once every month," 
said Miss Lulu Rowley, one of the teachers. "The children 
knew the signal well ; so when the gong sounded Wednesday 
in my room on the second floor, the pupils all closed their 
geographies and stood up. 

"I ordered a child at a desk in the rear of the room to open 
the door. It was when smoke poured into the room that I 
realized that this was more serious than our ordinary fire 
drills. 

"I was standing in the middle of the room at the time, help- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 67 

ing one of the pupils with her work. Despite my caution to 
keep quiet, some of the children started to cry 'fire.' Immedi- 
ately there was a rush for the door. 

"At the foot of the stairs the passage through the front door 
was cut off by the flames. The other entrance in the rear was 
jammed shut with children from the other rooms who had left 
their rooms earlier than those in mine. 

"I called to my class to file into one of the rooms on the first 
floor. Only a few obeyed, and these I lifted to the windows. 
Even then some of them would not jump until I pushed them. 

"I ran back into the hall to call more children. By this time 
the smoke was so dense that I could not see 10 feet before me. 

Only A Few Obey. 

"Most of my pupils are foreigners. I always found them 
more obedient than the American children, but they were too 
panic-stricken to mind me. They rushed headlong at the back 
door. They could not get through. 

"Seemg that I could not save any more, I jumped through 
one of the back windows.. 

"At our last fire drill three weeks ago, the children in my 
room filed out of the building in about a minute. But with the 
front door cut off by flames, it was impossible to follow our 
usual drill." 



CHAPTER V. 

PARENTS UNABLE TO SAVE. 

FATHERS AND MOTHERS PRAY AND CURSE AS 
THEIR CHILDREN PERISH. 

Fearful scenes were enacted while the schoolhouse 
burned. Fathers and mothers raved, cursed or prayed. 
Many tried to break through the crowd and some got so 
far as to dash toward the flaming doorways. A big man 
in overalls and jumper was restrained by force. Explain- 
ing in broken English that his "babies" were in the build- 
ing he struggled desperately with the three men who held 
him. 

Finally they threw him to the ground and sat on him, 
forcing his great form down in the ankle-deep mud. 

The building was destroyed, only the outside brick 
walls remaining standing. The floors and roof fell into 
the interior early in the fire, making the rescue of bodies 
intact absolutely hopeless. 

As soon as firemen and volunteers could get close 
enough attempts were made to pluck bodies from the 
death heaps at the doors. 

It was found that the flames had practically incinerated 
the bodies. Firemen with rakes, forks and shovels turned 
up blackened bones, little blackened skulls and masses of 
charred flesh, but bodies recognizable as such were no 
longer to be found. 

The fire had swept away nearly all resemblance to hu- 
man features in the majority of instances. Distracted par- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 69 

ents soon began to gather and the work of identification 
of the blackened and mangled corpses began. 

The task of taking out the blackened bodies was one of 
horror. A line of rescuers was formed, backed by half a 
dozen ambulances. 

As the bodies were drawn from the debris they were 
passed along to the stretchers and thence loaded in the 
ambulances. 

Mercifully covered with blankets, the pitiful sights were 
veiled from the crowd of curious that stretched about the 
entrance to the structure. 

As fast as a load was obtained it was driven away to the 
improvised morgue, to be succeeded by another within a 
short time. 

The sights of the human charnel house caused the men 
delving into the mass of burned flesh to hesitate, but the 
work had to be done and done quickly, so their feelings 
had to be smothered for the time being as they tenderly 
handled all that was mortal of the little ones. 

At the temporary morgue in the Lake Shore shop the 
scenes increased fourfold in the intensity of human suf- 
fering as fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters passed up 
and down the lines formed of scores of corpses. 

To facilitate identification the bodies were numbered as 
they were received at the morgue. 

After the bodies had been taken to the temporary 
morgue they were laid in rows of ten. 

The first identification was that of Nels Thompson, a 
boy who was identified by his mother, who knew his sus- 
pender buckle, 

Henry Schultz, nine years old, was known only by a 



70 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

fragment of his sweater, his face having been trampled 
into nothing. 

The third identification was that of Irene Davis, fifteen 
years old, whose little sister pointed out a fragment of her 
skirt. 

Among those who sought vainly through the morgue 
for their children was Mrs. John Phillis of Polar street, 
whose fifteen-year-old daughter was among the dead. 

Her attention was called to the fire by her four-year-old 
son, who called her to come to the window, ''and see the 
children playing on the fire escape.", 

Mrs. Phillis ran to the schoolhouse and found her 
daughter among those penned in around the front door. 
She took hold of her hands, but could not pull her out. 

"I reached in and stroked her head," said Mrs. Phillis, 
"trying to keep the fire from burning her hair. I stayed 
there and pulled at her and tried to keep the fire away 
from her till a heavy piece of glass fell on me, cutting my 
hand nearly off. Then I fell back and my girl died before 
my eyes." 

Dale Clark, eight years old, was identified by a little 
pink bordered handkerchief, in which he had wrapped a 
new, bright green marble. 

The body of Russell Newberry, nine years old, was made 
known by a fragment of a watch chain. 

Hugh Mcllrath, ten years old, who was killed in the 
fire, was the son of Charles G. Mcllrath, chief of the 
Collinwood police. He lost his life in the effort to save a 
number of smaller children. 

When Chief Mcllrath reached the burning building he 
saw his son leading a crowd of younger children down the 
fire escape. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 



71 



From the bottom of the escape to the ground was a 
long leap, and the children refused to take it, in spite of 
young Mcllrath's efforts. 

Some of them turned back into the building, and young 
Mcllrath hastened after them to induce them to come out 
again, but was caught by the flames before he could do so 
himself. 

Glenn Sanderson, a boy of twelve, met his death in 
plain view of a large crowd which was utterly unable to 
help him. 

He was on the third floor, in the school auditorium, in 
which were a number of pieces of scenery. 

The floor beneath him was on fire, and young Sander- 
son swung from one piece of scenery to another, trying 
to reach the fire escape. 

He managed to cross the stage about half wayj when he 
missed his grasp and fell into the fire. 



% 



'In A ' 



;W' ' 











'*i* : . U uZt^2--'^ 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE TERRIBLE STORY. 

STRONG MEN WEEP AS THEY TELL HOW 
THEIR CHILDREN DIED. 

A father stood on the street in Collinwood after the fire 
and told a neighbor how his little girl, nine years old, was 
burned to death. 

He told how she had helped her mother with the break- 
fast dishes. He told how she had laughed and waved her 
hand to him as she skipped off down the street for school 
on the fatal Wednesday. He told how she looked when 
they got her out, her poor little body charred by flames, 
twisted in agony. 

He laid his face in the arm of his shabby overcoat and 
sobbed. 

The word "Wednesday," marking the day when scores 
of children had died in the flames of their school, merely 
startled those whom the fire did not leave stricken and 
hysterical or dazed. 

Realization of the horror came in the plain, heartrend- 
ing stories that passed from man to man in the streets and 
from one home to another. 

It was learned then how some little boy, the snub-nosed 
youngster who passed the house every morning rattling a 
stick against the fence pickets, met death ; how he was 
taken out with his little legs twisted, stiffened, charred, 
his arm thrown up across his burned and blackened face. 

A hush of pity fell. The silence of death, an awful, 
wholesale death of little children lies upon the town. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 73 

One story is that of an unknown little girl among the 
many heaped up against the closed rear door. The flames 
were at her back when she pressed her face to the crack 
of the door and pleaded: 

"Mister, help me out." 

William Davis, aged twenty-four, 615 Westropp ave- 
nue, could hear her. He threw his weight against the 
door and tried to force it open, back through the piled-up 
bodies. She could almost touch him. Her face was to the 
crack. Her hair was scorching. Her baby hands reached 
out pleading, "Mister, help me." 

Something fell from above on Davis' head and stunned 
him. Before others could reach the child she had fallen 
back among the dead. 

Whose little girl? 

No one could answer this question. To every stricken 
parent, to every one whose child was saved, to all who 
heard this story, the thought occurred: "Suppose my 
child was at that door reaching out and pleading, 'Mister, 
help me !' " 

At almost every other house along the streets white 
ribbons fluttered from the door-knobs. 

At one house three bows of white marked the number 
of the dead. At the table there at noon a father sat silent, 
with eyes staring ahead, and saw nothing. The food be- 
fore him lay untasted. 

At the side of the table were their chairs — three ; in a 
corner, the skates of the young boy ; on a rack behind the 
door hung the cap and cloak of his little girl — all dead. 

In the man's toil-roughened hands lay a sheet of paper 
with figures penciled over it. At the top was the name in 
a slow, rounded hand, Alice. 



74 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

The night before she sat by him at the table when the 
supper dishes were cleared away. He helped her with her 
lesson. It was a hard lesson for the little girl. He 
thought how pleased she had been when they got it right 
at last. 

He thought how she looked when she sleepily kissed 
him goodnight and went upstairs to bed. He thought of 
how she looked that last morning when she started to 
school. 

Slowly, while his eyes were still staring straight ahead, 
he folded the bit of paper that had been his little girl's and 
laid it away in his pocket. 

The baby in his high chair pounded the tray with his 
spoon. 

"Papa," baby cried in childish prattle. "Papa, when's 
Alice coming home?" 

The man could not speak. Tears rolled down his fur- 
rowed cheeks. He hid his face in his arms on the table 
and sobbed aloud, his shoulders shaking. 

In the front room the bodies lay side by side. And there 
beside them, crying, the mother knelt. They two, to- 
gether at the morgue, had claimed their dead. 

They passed along the long lines of charred, twisted 
little bodies. The mother pitched forward fainting when 
they at last found their third. 

Just across the street from the burned school was a 
little candy and school supply store. It was closed. In 
the windows lay displayed the slate pencils, rulers, tops, 
marbles, balls and chocolate rats, licorice sticks and all- 
day suckers — things for which children spend their pen- 
nies. 

Such things as these fell from the pockets of charred 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 75 

clothes at the orgue when the bodies were lifted for re- 
moval. 

It was school time at 8:30 a. m. Thursday. BUT THERE 
WAS NO SCHOOL IN COLLINWOOD. 

At the regular hour children came out on the streets. Habit 
or fascination drew them to the ruins, where their playmates 
had perished. 

Fights Fire as Son Dies. 

The fire had its tragedy for Charles G. Mcllrath, chief of the 
Collinwood police force. He was one of the first to arrive at 
the burning building. He was at the police station when the 
fire broke out and received the first news of the fire over the 
telephone. As soon as he turned in the alarm he jumped into 
a passing wagon and ordered the driver to rush him to the 
school building. 

The flames had gained considerable headway, however, be- 
fore he arrived and the heat was so intense that he was un- 
able to enter the building where his three children, Hugh, 
fourteen ; Benson, seven, and Viola May, nine, were at school. 

A large number of children ha*d made their escape from the 
building, but he did not know whether his children were alive 
or dead. Duty came before everything else. He had to take 
charge of the police force and he had no time to examine 
the bodies as they were carried from the building. 

For six hours he remained at the building keeping the 
crowd back and answering the questions of hundreds of anx- 
ious fathers and mothers. His stolid face did not betray his 
anxious heart and only when pressed did he say that he feared 
that his children were lost. 

During the afternoon he learned that his daughter Viola 



76 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

May and his son Benson were safe. His eldest son was still 
missing, but he was unable to search for him until 6 o'clock. 
Then he hurried to the Lake Shore shops, where the dead 
bodies were taken, and after a long, nerve racking search he 
found the body of his son. 

Finds Dead Son. 

"It's Hughie," was all he said. 

Brushing back the tears that welled into his eyes he hurried 
back to the ruins of the charnel house and remained on duty 
until far into the night. 

Frank J. Dorn, a member of the school board and chairman 
of its building committee, was in the kitchen of his home wdien 
the school bell gave the alarm. \\^ithout waiting to put on his 
hat or coat, he ran to the building. He and Charles \\all, a 
special policeman, were among the first to reach the building. 
The children had begun to fall at the rear door. Together 
they dragged many to safety, among them Miss Pearl Lynn, 
a teacher in the first grade, who had fallen and was being 
trampled under foot by the excited scholars. 

"The fire had not much headwav when we reached the 
school," said Frank Dorn. "The flames were burning in the 
front part of the hall and had shut ofif escape from that way, 
but the rear entrance was still free and the children were 
pouring out. 

"One child fell and the others, mad with the panic, and 
borne on by the force of those behind them, fell over their 
prostrate companions. One of these was Miss Lynn. She 
was nearly unconscious when we got her into the open air 
and her clothing was badly burned. 

"I could see my little girl in the rear of the crowd. She was 
with Blanch ^Mcllrath, Chief IMcIlrath's daughter. I called to 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 17 

them to come on and I would pull them over the heap of chil- 
dren. I saw them turn and go up the stairway. That was 
the last I saw of my girl. Blanch Mcllrath was saved. ]\Iy 
little one is dead." 

Ten-year-old Mildred Schmitt, her skirts in flames to the 
knees, ran screaming from the building. Someone in the 
crowd smothered the flames, but not until the little form was 
blistered and blackened. "Papa, papa," moaned the child, and 
breaking his way through to her, the father sprang to her 
side just as she was being placed in an ambulance. Her 
mother had fainted at sight of the child's agony. 

"You'll go with me, won't you, papa?" the little girl 
moaned. 

"Yes, right with you," said the father, choking down his 
sobs. Mildred was taken to Glenville hospital, where sht 
died a few hours later.- 

Face and Hands Blistered. 

Henry Ellis, 4613 Westropp avenue, Collinwood, a real es- 
tate man, was one of the first to reach the doomed building. 
He was aroused by a boy running down the street and crying 
"Fire." With L. E. Cross, superintendent of the Lake Shore 
roundhouse, he ran to the scene. Together they attempted 
to rescue some of the children, jammed in at the rear dooi. 
Ellis remained at his post till his face and hands w^ere blistered. 

"It was the most heartrending sight I ever saw," said Ellis, 
his hands swathed in cotton. "When I reached the school the 
smoke was pouring from the first and second story windows. 
The front door appeared to be closed, and behind it I could 
see the flames coming through the floor. 

"Cross and I went to the rear. Back of the open door was 



78 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

the most pitiful sight I ever saw. The memory of it I will 
carry to my grave. 

"There they lay, five or six deep in the open door. They had 
almost reached a place of safety, and, rvmning down the stairs, 
had evidently fallen over the forms of their prostrate com- 
panions. Back of them were other children. The fire had 
already reached them. I could see over the mass before me ; 
the flames caught first one and then another. 

"The fire was creeping up on the children in the rear. I saw 
one girl, who could not have been more than ten or ^welve, 
protect her little brother, who was not more than six years of 
age. He cried for help and clung to her hand. She com- 
forted him and covered his head with a shawl she was wear- 
ing. 

Flames Near Children. 

"The flames were growing closer, and the moans of the 
children mingled with the creaking of the fire. The little 
girl drew her brother nearer to her. She saw that there was 
no help. Together they knelt down on the floor. That was 
the last I saw. The fire caught them after that. 

"Cross and myself and others worked at the rear door. The 
children were lying in a heap on the floor and when I first 
came there I thought it would be no task at all to get most of 
them out. 

"After we had attempted to release the first girl we saw 
what was before us. They were crowded in, one on top of the 
other, as a cord of wood is piled up. It was impossible to 
move them. We succeeded in saving a few who were nearer 
the top, but that was all. 

"The children, and they were mostly girls, were patient. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 79 

They did not cry out for help. We worked as rapidly as we 
could. We would grasp a child by the arms and strive to 
disengage him from the compact mass. In most cases it was 
impossible. 

"The fire swept on through the hall. It sprang from one 
child to another, catching in their hair and on the girls' 
dresses. The cries of those in the rear were heartrending." 

When the first rumor of disaster reached Mrs. Mary Lau- 
bish, of Kent street, she rushed from her home bareheaded. 
Over the frozen pavement she flew, slipping, panting, fall- 
ing, still running on. Her sole thought was for her only boy, 
Clarence, ten years old, a bright fourth grade pupil. 

The woman dashed into the press of the people before the 
burning building. 

"My boy," she said imploringly. "Where is Clarence?" 

Before bystanders could speak her question was answered. 
The boy, alive and uninjured, rushed into her arms. Fainting 
with the excess of joy the mother sank to the ground and had 
to be carried away. 

At the first alarm Clarence had run to a second story win- 
dow and jumped. He escaped without a scratch. 

Depicts the Horror. 

Miss Colmar said: "It was awful. I can see the wee things 
in my room holding out their tiny arms and crying to me 
to help them. Their voices are ringing in my ears yet, and 
I shall never forget them. When the alarm gong rang I 
started the pupils to marching from the building. When 
we started down the front stairs we were met by a solid wall 
of flame and clouds of dense smoke. We retreated, and when 
we turned the children became panic stricken and I could not 



80 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

do anything with them. They became jammed in the narrow 
stairway and I knew that the only thing for me to do was to 
get around to the rear door, I suppose, and help those who 
were near the entrance. When I got there, after climbing out 
of a window, I found the children so crowded in the narrow 
passageway that I could not pull even one of them out. 

"Those behind pushed forward, and as I stood there the 
little ones piled up on one another. Those who could 
stretched out their arms to me and cried for me to help them. 
I tried with all my might to pull themjDut and stayed there 
until the flames drove me away." 

Tells of Horror. 

Another teacher, Miss Pearl Lynn, narrowly escaped death- 
She was carried toward the rear entrance by the rush of the 
panic-stricken pupils, and fell at the bottom of the stairs, 
with numbers of the children on top of her. She lay unable 
to rise because of the weight of the bodies upon her. She 
was dragged from the mass of dead children just in time to 
save her own life. 

One of the scenes of supreme horror that attended the fire 
occurred at the rear doorway of the building before the fire- 
men arrived. This door is said to have been closed and some 
say that it was locked. The children were piled up high 
against it, and when it finally was broken down, by those out- 
side, and because of the fire that had partly burned and weak- 
ened it, the women who had gathered on the outside saw be- 
fore them a mass of white faces and struggling bodies. 

The flames swept over the babes while the women stood 
helpless, unable to lift a hand to aid the children. ]\Iany of 
the women were unable to withstand the sight and dropped 
fainting to the ground. 



CHAPTER VII. 

EFFORT TO RESCUE CHILDREN. 

SUPREME MOMENT OF HORROR— DOOR TO 
SAFETY IS CLOSED. 

One of the scenes of supreme horror that attended the 
fire occurred at the rear doorway of the building before 
the firemen arrived. 

This door, like the one in front, opened inward, and it 
was locked. The children were piled up high against it, 
and when it finally was broken down by their weight and 
because of the fire that had partly burned and weakened 
it the women who had gathered on the outside saw before 
them a mass of white faces and struggling bodies. 

The flames swept over the aisle while the women stood 
helpless, unable to lift a hand to aid the children. Many 
of the women were unable to withstand the sight and 
dropped fainting to the ground. 

The fire department was late in reaching the building, 
and when it came the apparatus was inadequate, and the 
men were volunteers, there being no paid fire department 
in the suburb. 

The water pressure was not sufficiently strong to send 
a stream to the second story windows. Moreover, the 
firemen had no ladder that would reach to the third floor. 
The volunteers did what they could, but within a few 
moments after their arrival the task was one for ambu- 
lances alone. 

The police were utterly unable, through lack of num- 
bers, to keep away the crowd that pressed upon them, and 



82 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

the situation soon became so serious that a number of the 
more cool headed men in the throng took it upon them- 
selves to aid in fighting back the crowd, while others 
worked to help the firemen and the police. 

The flames had spread with such terrific rapidity that 
within thirty minutes from the time the fire was discov- 
ered the schoolhouse was nothing but blackened walls 
surrounding a cellar filled with corpses and debris. 

The firemen dashed into the blazing wreckage, and 
worked in the most frantic manner w:th the hope of sav- 
ing a few more lives. They were unsuccessful, for none 
was taken alive from the ruins after the floors collapsed. 

Fragments of incinerated limbs, skulls, and bones were 
found almost at every turn, and these things were piled 
together in a little heap at one side of the building. 

George Getzien, superintendent of the Collinwood Tele- 
phone Company, was in his buggy fewer than 200 feet 
distant from the school when he saw the fire eat its way 
through the front of the building. In relating his experi- 
ence he said : 

"I went to the rear door and tried to force an entrance. 
Aided by Policeman Charles Wall, we managed to get in, 
but both of us were driven out by the fire. 

"There were no children near the door at that time, as I 
remember it. We ran around to the front door, but could 
not force it open. j\Iy opinion is that it opened inward. 
The fire was so hot that within fifteen minutes after I saw 
the flames we could not remain near the building." 

Henry Ellis, real estate dealer, was one of the first to 
reach the building. \\'ith him was L. E. Cross, foreman 
of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern roundhouse. 

Together they attempted to rescue some of the children 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 83 

jammed at the rear door, and Ellis remained at the work 
until his hands and face were badly burned. 

"When I reached the school," he said, "the front door 
was closed, and below it I could see the flames coming 
through the floor. 

"We knew we could save none of the children there, so 
Cross and I went to the rear. The door had been broken 
open and the children lay five or six deep, the fire had 
already reached them, and I could see the flames catch 
first one and then another. 

"I saw one girl, who could not have been more than ten 
or twelve years old, protect her little brother, who was not 
more than six. He cried for help and clung to her hand. 

"She encouraged him and covered his head with a 
shawl she was wearing to keep the flames away. The fire 
caught them in a minute and both were killed. 

"Cross and I thought that the work of getting the chil- 
dren out would be easy, but when we attempted to release 
the first one we found it was almost impossible to move 
them at all. 

"We succeeded in saving a few who were near the top, 
but that was all we could do. The fire swept through the 
hall, springing from one child to another, catching in their 
hair and on the dresses of the girls. Their cries were 
fearful to hear." 

From the upper floors of the school building two stair- 
ways offered exit. One of these led to the door in front, 
the other to the door in the rear. 

It was in this last place that the lives of the little ones 
were lost while would-be rescuers stood helpless. The 
scenes that were enacted in the front hall never will be 
known. 



84 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

The door at this side of the building never was fully- 
opened. But a dense pile of little bodies that lay in the 
l)lackened wreckage beneath this point, the feet, the 
hands, the limbs and the skulls that were scattered about 
formed a complete index to the horrors that had taken 
place. 

Crowding in among the first rescuers at the fire came 
the mothers. Some of them could see their children in the 
crowd. 

The children who had been keeping up an incessant 
monotonous scream, shrieked louder at the sight of their 
mothers. 

A few of the women stood close to the stairway holding 
the hands of the little ones until the flames drove them 
away. 

When the fire forced the mothers to leave their chil- 
dren they stood about for the most part wailing and clasp- 
ing their hands. 

A few hurled stones through the windows in the hope 
that the crash of breaking glass would suggest to the chil- 
dren a possible avenue of escape. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A FIRE TRAP. 

SCHOOL BUILDING INADEQUATE TO ACCOM- 
MODATE ALL THE PUPILS. 

The Lake View School of North Collinwood was a 
brick structure, 2^^ stories in height. Under the stair- 
way in the basement in front of the building was located 
the furnace. Owing to the mild weather there was less 
fire than usual. 

On the first floor four rooms were in use when the fire 
broke out. The children on this floor, with few excep- 
tions, escaped. 

They believed the ringing of the fire gong was the 
usual fire signal and marched out in order. The pupils on 
the second and third floors became panic-stricken and 
rushed to death. 

Singular lack of foresight was shown in the construction 
of the school building, for it was provided with but nar- 
row halls; and the covered fire escapes on the outside, cus- 
tomary on school buildings, had never been installed. 

The school was overcrowded and quarters had been 
provided for the younger children in the attic. 

Strange as it may seem, more of the pupils escaped 
from this part of the schoolhouse than from any other. 

The children were under good discipline, they had beerr 
practiced frequently in the fire drill, their teachers with- 
out exception retained their self-possession, showing 
great courage in the face of imminent death, and vet more 



86 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

than half of these little ones died horribly because of 
faulty building arrangements. 

Inside the building was a shell, which burned with al- 
most inconceivable rapidity. The entire interior was a 
mass of smoking ruins lying in the cellar within thirty 
minutes after the alarm of fire was sounded. 

There was but one fire escape, and that was in the rear 
of the building. There were but two stairways, one lead- 
ing to a door in front and the other to a door in the rear. 

There were in the building at the time the fire was dis- 
covered between 310 and 325 pupils. They were under 
the control of nine teachers, all but two of whom escaped. 

All of the victims were between the ages of six and 
fifteen years. The school contained between 310 and 325 
pupils, and of this entire number only about eighty left, 
the building unhurt. 

When the teachers were informed of the existence jf 
the fire they promptly formed the pupils in columns of 
march, according to the fire drill, which they had so fre- 
quently practiced, and started them for the door. 

They had trained the children to march always toward 
the door in front and instinctively the columns headed 
that way and the children unknowingly were by their 
teachers literally marched into the very face of death. 

When the head of the column was nearing the front 
door a rush of flames met it. 

Some of the children dashed at the door in the efifort to 
open it, while others turned and fled wildly up the stairs. 
The door was double and one side was held by a spring. 

The column above knowing nothing of the fire on the 
stairs below, kept pressing dcwn and within a few seconds 
there was a jam, panic and struggle on the stairway and 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 87 

behind the half-closed front door that nothing could stop 
and which cost the lives of all who were caught within it. 

As soon as the alarm was given in North Collinwood 
Mrs. W. C. Kelley ran from her home, which is not far 
from the schoolhouse, to the burning building. 

The front portion of the structure was a mass of flames, 
and frenzied, by the screams of the fighting and dying chil- 
dren which reached them from the death trap at the foot 
of the first flight of stairs, and behind that closed door, 
Mrs. Kelley ran to the rear, hoping to effect an entrance 
there, and save her children. 

She was joined by a man whose name is not known, and 
the two of them tugged and pulled frantically at the door. 

They were unable to move it in the slightest, and there 
was nothing at hand by which they could hope to break 
it down. 

In utter despair of saving any of the children, they 
turned their attention to the windows, and by smashing 
some of these they managed to save a few of the pupils. 

"They could have saved many more," said Mrs. Kelley, 
**if the door had not been locked. Nobody knows how 
many of the children might have made their way out be- 
fore any aid had reached there, if the door had not been 
locked. 

"If half a dozen men had been there- when I arrived at 
the schoolhouse, perhaps they might have broken down 
the door, but I could do nothing, and the flames spread so 
rapidly that it was all over in a few minutes." 

Those who survived the terrible catastrophe had heart- 
felt praise for the heroism of some of the women teachers 
in their efforts to save the children from death, especially 
Miss Catherine Weiler, who lost her life, and Miss Grace 



88 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Fiske, who labored with almost superhuman efforts to save 
the pupils under her care. She was badly injured. 

Miss Weiler's body, covered by a huge pile of her dead 
scholars, was found just inside the rear door, through which 
a frantic fight was made to escape. 

Miss Catherine \Veiler lost her life in a vain effort to mar- 
shal the pupils of her class and lead them to safety. She died 
in the crush at the rear door. Her room was on the second 
floor, and when the fire alarm sounded she marched her pu- 
pils out into the hall, thinking it was only a fire drill. There 
the truth dawned upon both teacher and pupils, and control 
was lost. 

The children in their frenzy plunged into the struggling 
mass ahead of them. Miss Weiler attempted to stem the 
rush, but went down under it. and her body was found an 
hour later piled high with those of the pupils. 

Miss \A>iler formerly lived in Detroit and was educated in 
Toledo, 

Miss Fiske was taken out horribly crushed, but died. 

Whole Town on the Scene. 

The suburb of Collinwood contains about 8,000 persons, 
and within half an hour after the outbreak of the lire nearly 
every one of them was gathered around the blazing ruins of 
the schoolhouse, hundreds of parents fighting frantically with 
the police and firemen, who were busily engaged in saving the 
lives of the children and doing their best to extinguish the 
fire. The police were utterly unable through lack of num- 
bers to keep away the crowd that pressed upon them, and 
the situation soon became so serious that a number of more 
cool-headed men in the throng took it upon themselves to 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 89 

aid in fighting back the crowd, while others worked to help 
the firemen and the police. 

The flames spread with such terrific rapidity that within 
30 minutes from the time the fire was discovered the build- 
ing was nothing, but a few blackened walls surrounding a 
cellar filled with corpses and debris. 

The firemen dashed into the blazing wreckage, and with 
rakes, forks, shovels and their bare hands worked in the 
most frantic manner with the hope of saving a few more lives. 
They were unsuccessful, for none was taken alive from the 
ruins after the floors collapsed. Fragments of incinerated 
limbs, skulls and bones were found almost at every turn, and 
these things were piled together in a little heap at one side 
of the building. 

The great majority of the little bodies that were taken out 
were burned beyond all possible recognition. And it is no 
small part of the sorrow which bore down the people of North 
Collinwood that positive identification of many of the chil- 
dren was never made. 

Besides the children who were killed inside the building 
three little girls, Mary Ridgeway, Anna Rolth and Gertrude 
Davis were instantly killed by leaping from the attic to the 
ground. 

Anguish after Fire. 

Anguish and anger were Collinwood's the day after the fire. 

The day of horror past, the townspeople turned to tlic 
reckoning. Directly they placed the blame against the faulty 
construction of the inner door, wrathfully against the feeble 
fire department, more bitterly against the politics that made 
such inadequate protection possible. 



90 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

When the alarm was sounded the only team of fire horses 
the town owns was dragging a road scraper, more than a 
mile away. While frantic and helpless men and women were 
wasting their futile strength trying to break down the rear 
door and the partition on both sides, the ax that would have 
saved many lives was lying idly in the fire station, and the 
team-of-all-work was plowing through mud knee deep on itb 
way to where it should have been. 

Many Lives Sold Cheaply. 

It would have been a simple matter, say those who were 
first on the scene, to have broken down the door, cut away the 
partition and released at least part of the mass of children 
that clogged the passageway — if there had been an ax at 
hand. Sc^■eral men ran to near by homes in quest of one, 
but they came back empty handed. 

At last the fire department reached the school. First came 
the hose wagon, drawn by horses borrowed for the occasion, 
I-'rail and anticjuated. it squeaked and rattled as it struck the 
numerous ruts in the mire of the road. It would have been 
a laughable sight under other circumstances. In time, fol- 
lowed the wheezy gasoline engine and the hook and ladder, 
for even such a long run could not kill the team-of-all-work. 
The engine once in action, spluttered and halted, the hose 
leaked and the water pressure was admittedly abnormally 
low. 

And this was what the fire department depended upon to 
protect a town of 7,000 inhabitants, forty-three miles of streets 
and property worth several millions. 

For months Collinwood talked of becoming a part of 
Cleveland. Under the administration of Mayor Sherman, 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 91 

who preceded Mayor Westropp, the town voted for the step. 
But the Sherman regime was not to be ousted without a 
fight. It had a month of life after it was sentenced to fall 
and after the people had declared their wish to be taken into 
the larger city. In that month the anti-annexationists de- 
voted themselves to obstructing the carrying out of the plan 
and perpetrated a successful political trick, delaying action. 

In this situation Collinwood was stagnated. No money has 
been spent on fire protection that could be saved, for once in 
Cleveland, the town no longer would have to depend upon its 
own resources. The dust and rust have been allowed to 
gather on the superannuated fire apparatus. 

"We have little money and we must economize," said Mayor 
Westropp. 

Appeal for Protection Futile. 

It was only a week or so before the fire that an appeal was 
made to the council for better protection on the north end of 
the town, in which the ill fated school building was located. 
The petition was "placed on file." 

And in its grief, Collinwood recalled all this. "If we had 
our way this never would have happened," was the lament. 

Irony in Hall of Dead. 

What irony there was in the bringing of the dead to this 
place, dedicated to the housing of the town's fire department. 

"Protection No. 1" was the legend in gilt letters on the lit- 
tle old hose wagon in the rear of the room. "Protection No. 
1." Stricken fathers and mothers looked at this and then at 
the pathetic rows of bodies. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MORGUE'S SAD STORY. 

MANY PATHETIC SCENES ARE ENACTED AT 
THE TEMPORARY MORGUE. 

Hundreds of dramatic scenes were enacted at the tem- 
porary morgue where the bodies of the fire victims were 
taken. 

A long, wide room was divided into corridors by goods, 
hastily piled up. A murky room, stifling with its odor of 
burned stuff. A silent room — save for the shuffling of feet 
and now and then a sob. 

Along each corridor lay blanl^ets which covered little 
heaps. Here and there a shoe or a charred foot protruded, 
telling what was concealed beneath. 

Here and there, too, a white sheet, which told that some 
child had been identified. 

Walking through the aisles was a group of men and 
women — the men with bared heads, the women with 
shawls over their heads — on their faces — who can describe 
the looks there, some with tears, some with dry eyes — 
walked past each body and looked as the attendant drew 
away the blanket. 

Grief was written there — and hope — and greater and 
greater grew the hope as the terrible review revealed not 
the body of the loved ones. 

Then came the terrible moment when the mother and 
father found the body of the child they knew was dead yet 
hoped was not. Strong men on guard joined tears with 
the stricken ones. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 93 

Such was the scene at the Collinwood morgue. 

Such was the scene again and again enacted as the 
groups of parents were admitted to the hall of death. All 
afternoon, all night and when dawn broke the next day, 
the mothers and fathers of Collinwood stood at the doors 
of the Lake Shore storehouse awaiting their chance to 
find their dead. 

As each body was laid upon the f^oor, a tag was at- 
tached to the blanket telling whether the corpse was that 
of a boy or girl. This saved much unnecessary uncover- 
ing of the bodies. 

The system of identification was perfect. The entire 
personnel of the Lake Shore of^ces was in charge and 
escorted the parents through the aisles. Time and again, 
a mother, having found her child under a blanket would 
throw up her arms and sink unconscious. 

Fathers were affected diiiferently. Some cursed. Some 
gazed stony-eyed upon the twisted, charred shape before 
them, the light of reason having deserted their eyes tem- 
porarily. Some raved like madmen. 

One poor fellow was led away by stout men, jibbering 
unintelligibly. Some one laughed and a silence so intense 
that it was deathlike fell upon the hundreds within hear- 
ing. 

The stricken mothers were carried upstairs, where 
nurses and physicians administered such aid as was calcu- 
lated to dull the stiletto stabs of agony. 

Police Captain Schmunk, after the fire, asked Inspector 
Rowe for ten more policemen to help handle the crowd 
about the morgue. The Cleveland Young Women's 
Christian Association at once sent out 100 women to 



94 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

assist in caring for the injured and to prepare for the 
funerals. 

A legal light over the burned body of one of the fire 
victims was for a time threatened by the child's father 
and his divorced wife. 

As a result the little corpse lay for two days in a Collin- 
wood morgue guarded by an officer under orders of Coro- 
ner Burke. 

The child was John Rush, six years old. A year ago his 
father, L. W. Rush, was divorced from his wife Effie. 
With the decree of separation the court gave the mother 
the custody of the child. Later the wife has married Clin- 
ton Taylor, an employe of the Lake Shore. The body was 
identified by his foster father. 

Rush, the boy's real father, claimed the body, but the 
mother refused to surrender it. The father said he would 
get a writ of attachment if necessary. Before the funeral, 
however, the trouble was settled. 

In addition to the frightful list of dead, fresh grief came 
to the suburb soon after the fire with the announcement 
that several women, mothers of children lost in the fire, 
had lost their reason. 

Mrs. Bertha Robinson of 5078 Forrest avenue, at- 
tempted to kill herself. Her two little girls, her only 
children. Fern, twelve, and Juanita, seven, were burned to 
death. 

Testimony taken at the morgue established beyond a 
doubt that the school building was a veritable lire trap. 

Evidence showed that one of the inner doors at the 
west entrance was closed and fastened, while children 
were piling up against it in the passage ; that wing parti- 
tions in the vestibule narrowed the exit by at least three 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 95 

feet ; that there was but one fire escape, and that its use 
never was taught as a part of the fire drill. 

Survivors among the teachers testified that only two or 
three minutes passed between the time of the alarm until all 
escape was cut off. 

The building was a fair sample of the kind of school con- 
struction in use in small towns. The halls and stairways 
were inclosed between interior brick walls, forming a huge 
flue, through which the. flames shot up with great rapidity. 

Identifying the Dead. 

The scene was awful at the temporary morgue in the general 
store house of the Lake Shore shops. Row on row of charred 
corpses, headless torsos with blackened flesh, half naked bodies 
with splintered bones protruding, crumbling stubs of hands 
crossed before unrecognizable faces, some bodies mere heaps 
of bones and rags, others more grewsome in their human guise. 
Such was the awful spectacle that awaited the eyes of frenzied 
parents, who after hours of waiting, were admitted to claim 
their dead. In a moment the quiet of the charnel house with 
its scores of silent guards was broken by the screams of dis- 
tracted parents. Cries, moans, but most terrible of all 
laughter, maudlin laughter, the laughter of madness, made the 
flesh of the watchers creep. They were identifying their dead. 
A woman would, faint as she recognized in some blackened bit 
of flesh the daughter whom she had kissed goodbye as she left 
for school a few hours before. A strong man would fall into 
the arms of a watchful guard, mumbling the name of the child 
whose clothes he had just recognized on some headless hump. 

But there could be no delay. Other mothers and fathers 
waited their turn to find their dead. As the bodies were iden- 



i 



96 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

tified kind but firm guards carried or led the sorrowing parents | 

away. Others would then be admitted. Another heart- I 

rending scene would follow. And thus the afternoon wore 
away and the night. At midnight 56 unidentified bodies were 
moved to the town hall. In the improvised morgue in the 
Lake Shore storehouse, love, hate, grief, despair and the in- 
toxication of liquor all added to the horror of death. Men 
cursed, calling down imprecations upon the unknown authors 
of their misery, women knelt in an agony of grief over the 
forms of dear ones, the naked walls of the storehouse echoed 
to the wails of love, mother love, father love, for the children 
who would never hear them more. Men and women with 
haggard, listless faces and glassy, staring eyes were led awa}- 
semiconscious. 

Mercifully Become Unconscious. 

Merciful unconsciousness gave many a short respite. Red- 
eyed men drunk with alcohol staggered among the dead de- 
manding tlieir children. They were identifying their dead. 

In this inferno, soft-voiced women volunteers moved about 
like ministering angels, giving aid and comfort where they 
could, soothing fainting women and relieving the scene of 
much of its horror. Volunteers from the Lake Shore shops 
and offices did everything in their power to keep hysterical 
men and women in check. Not all the searchers cried aloud. 
Some there were who passed silently before the rows of bodies 
exposed in their blankets. Some cooed over the dead like a 
mother rocking her child. "It's a little plaid, blue and red." 
one woman murmured as she moved unaided along the rows 
of dead touching their clothing and peering at their faces. 
"He has pretty little fingers," "I'm glad he kissed me when he 
left this morning." 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 97 

And then the watchful guard saw her crumble in a heap as 
she recognized in a little nude figure, her child. 

"My God, that's my boy," she screamed as she sank into the 
guard's arms an inert mass, every vestige of consciousness 
gone. It was a common case. She was carried to the second 
floor where a corps of 20 physicians waited to attend to those 
overcome. She was given a hypodermic injection of strychnine 
sulphate to revive her. In a few minutes she again awoke to 
the realization of the disaster that had befallen her. She was 
put in an auto, one of several waiting for that purpose, and 
taken to her home. She had identified her dead. 

A man entered the morgue supporting his wife by the arm. 
They had lost a girl. Neither uttered a sound or shed a tear 
as they were led through the aisles of dead. As the guard un- 
covered a face or held up a bit of dress for them to see, the 
man held out his hands, palms outward, to signify that his 
had not been found. The woman gazed steadily at the dis- 
figured bodies as in a dream. The man hesitated at one tan- 
gled heap. "Look in his pockets," he said calmly as one 
might ask for a match. A list of spelling words, uncharred 
was disclosed. The man gazed at them many seconds as if 
rooted to the spot. 'T saw those this morning," he said utter- 
ing each word separately. His wife turned to him. He looked 
at her. "Take me away." she whispered. 

They walked out together. They had identified their dead. 

A woman, shrieking like a lost soul was led in by two 
guards. She was a foreigner, with toil-stained hands. As 
each body was shown her she cried at the top of her voice. 
Over and over she repeated her boy's name. 



98 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

She clawed at the tattered remnants of clothing on more 
than one little form. 

"Oh, Henry, Henry," she shrieked. "He isn't here. He is 
in a hospital somewhere. He isn't here. He isn't here." 

But he was there. A silver watch ticking peacefully told 
the story. She recognized it. The body was headless. The 
arms and legs were charred to a crisp. With a cry animal 
like in its ferocity, she threw herself upon the torso. On her 
knees, with hands uplifted to heaven, she prayed in her native 
tongue. When the guards attempted to lift her she clung to 
the form of her boy, gibbering, a mad woman. She had iden- 
tified her dead. 

A strong man, his eyes bloodshot from weeping, and shiv- 
ering in every limb, moved along the rows of distorted bodies, 
supported on either side by a guard. His mouth open, so 
limp it seemed he must fall at every step, he bent over the 
bodies, reeking with the odor of burnt flesh. "Oh, God, I have 
nothing left in the world. Let me die, too," he sobbed, his 
voice strangling in his throat. His three children were among 
the dead. 

Identified by a Shoe. 

One more was found, a boy. He recognized the body by the 
shoe. The man continued to sob. He paid no particular at- 
tention to the body. Half led, half carried, he moved along 
the rows. Another child and then the third was found. The 
girl he knew by a bracelet encircling her fleshlcss wrist. The 
third child, a boy, he knew by his clothes. Without pausing, 
without noticing the dead, he was led away, still crying dis- 
tractedly, "Oh, God, let me go, too. Why did I live to see this 
day?" He had identified his dead. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 99 

These are but types of the kaleidoscopic views of human 
misery and sufifering that passed through the death house 
Rich and poor, young and old, white and black — class, caste 
and color were forgotten. All were united in a common ob- 
ject, the search for their dead. Many were there who after 
hours of search could not identify their children. Relatives in 
particular who sought to take the harrowing trial of identifica- 
tion from the parents were unable to recognize the little ones. 
Some took pieces of clothing home to see if the parents could 
identify them. 

Railroad Men as Heroes. 

During all the scene of agony and death the employes of the 
Lake Shore offices did valiant work in caring for the searchers. 
Under the direction of Dr. W. H. Williams, Lake Shore sur- 
geon, and Harry ^McNeill, deputy coroner, everything was 
done that was possible to help in the work of identifying the 
dead. Seventy-five Lake Shore office men acted as guards 
over the bodies and escorts for the searchers. A band of Col- 
linwood women cared for those who were overcome. The 
railway Y. M .C. A. furnished sandwiches and coffee to the 
workers. 

Battle With Dead. 

To the workers the scene lost much of its gruesomeness be- 
cause of the number of* the dead. One body, one sorrowing 
mourner more or less made little difference. It was like a 
battle, the very number of slain made the sight less appalling. 
The clanging of ambulances as they rushed up for their 
freight of identified dead to convey them to their morgues, 
■was mingled with the raucous calls of the workers who 



100 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

checked off each body carried from the building. When the 
bodies were identified the name. age. and address of the child 
were placed on a tag attached to a blanket. When an under- 
taker removed the body the tag was turned over to IMcXeil, 
who thus kept account of all unidentified bodies. 

Late in the evening a constant procession of stretchers, 
blankets and baskets was being employed to carry out the 
dead. Most of the bodies were taken to private morgues. 

Bodies Covered and Tagged. 

Rival solicitors for undertaking establishments thrust the 
cards of their firms in the hands of weeping parents who had 
just identified their dead. Several solicitors were cautioned 
as being over anxious to get business. Bodies began to ar- 
rive at the improvised morgue soon after 11 o'clock Wednes- 
day morning. Ambulances brought from one to seven bodies. 
Some of the bodies were so disintegrated that they were car- 
ried in baskets. All were wrapped in blankets and laid in 
rows along the aisles of the storehouse, a building 250 feet 
long and 100 feet wide. 

All the bodies were covered. Tags were attached to each 
blanket bearing a number. Xo one was admitted until all 
the bodies possible to recover before the fire was extinguished 
were brought in. The list increased until every aisle in the 
building was lined with rows of smoking figures. 

Only One Identified. 

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon only one child had been posi- 
tively identified. Irene Davis, fifteen, whose father, W. B. 
Davis, works in the storeroom recognized his child when 
the body was brought in. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 101 

By orders of Deputy Coroner McNeill and Dr. Williams, 
assisted by a dozen Lake Shore officials, a few of the 500 
anxious relatives that had been detained by a cordon of police 
at the entrance to the works on Collamer avenue, 200 yards 
away, were admitted. 

They were met at the door of the morgue by volunteer 
Lake Shore men, who led them along the aisles of dead. A 
man stationed over little groups of six or eight bodies helped 
them to inspect the remains. As they found the one they 
sought, the name, age and address of the child was placed 
on the tag attached to the blanket. A piece of 'white canvas 
was put over the identified body, which was removed to an 
undertaker's room as soon as one was employed. 

Many Bodies Removed. 

One hundred and three bodies had been identified and re- 
moved by midnight, when McNeill ordered the remaining un- 
identified bodies taken to the town hall on Collamer avenue. 
There they kept them until identified. 

Many, after spending hours searching among the bodies, 
could not find their loved ones. John Grant, 5806 Arcade 
street, searched with his wife the entire number of bodies, but 
could not find their daughter, Earla, who was lost. 

At the entrance to the Lake Shore yards the crowd of hun- 
dreds held back by the police surged angrily against the gate, 
threatening to break it every minute. Roy Lowey, 16 Arcade 
street, whose two twin sisters, May and Clara, twelve, were 
among the missing, leaped over the fence. He fought franti- 
cally with the police who sought to restrain him. 

His father, Jesse Lowey, who had been admitted to look 
for his daughters, joined him, beside himself from grief. 



102 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Don't you touch my boy," he yelled hoarsely. "I'll kill 
3'ou all," he raged, as the police strove to restrain the sobbing 
boy from rushing with his father back to the morguue. Both 
v.ere carried by main force from the yard. 

There were not a few who sought admission to the morgue 
out of mere morbid curiosity. Several of these made their 
way into the yard only to be thrown out roughly by the police. 

Many Families Hungry. 

The sadness of bereavement was not all the sorrow of Col- 
linwood. There was the sadness of hunger, of hopelessness, 
of the madness that means suicide. 

Many of the bereaved families were Greiners. They were 
poor. They did not know the customs of the land. Many of 
them did not speak the language. And many of them were 
working only part of the time or not all at. It was privation 
for them to give their last pennies to buy books for their lit- 
tle ones and clothe them so that in the presence of the Ameri- 
can children they would not be ashamed. 

The Collinwood town committee in its rounds of mercy, 
entered these humble homes and found destitution that made 
bereavement more keen. But the parents did not ask for 
charity ; they did not think of fire or food. 

Poverty Adds to Suffering. 

The committee went to the comfortless home of 
Airs. Mary Maknic, 4811 Charles street. There was no an- 
swer to their knock. They opened the door and found no one 
in the chill, Ijare room. A sound came from the kitchen, and 
there stood Mrs. ]\Iaknic. disheveled, with staring eyes and 
set face. 



I 

I 



1 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 103 

She held a knife in her hand. As she caught sight of the 
visitors she grasped the handle convulsively, lowered the 
weapon, and then darted the point toward her throat. 

They caught her arm just in time, and wrested the knife 
from her hand. Then the rigid body grew limp, and she 
sank in to the arms of the men, muttering incoherently in her 
own tongue. 

Little Mary Missing. 

They caught the word "Mary." Her Mary was "missing" 
—a charred little mass, perhaps, among the "unidentified" at 
the morgue. 

There was no food or fire in the home of Mary PopoviC: 
4709 Charles street. And there were no children. There had 
been two. The mother was sitting huddled up in a rocking 
chair, a ragged shawl over her head, and her face buried in 
her arms. 

The eyes that glanced furtively at the visitors were blood- 
shot, and the quivering lips were thin and blue. But she did 
not ask for food or fire. Her thoughts were food enough, and 
there was fire in her veins. 

At daybreak a man, shivering and wan, knocked at the door 
of Father M. Pakiz, pastor of St. Mary's church. He had no 
overcoat, no gloves. He was John Oblock of 424 Spruce 
street. 

All night he had roamed through the streets of Collinwood 
— to the morgue, to the blistered walls where the schoolhouse 
had been — tramping, tramping, through the slush and mud. 
He had a little daughter in the morning, and in the evening 
he could not find her. And so there was nothing for him to 
do but walk, and walk, and maybe somewhere, he thought, he 
might see or hear something of his little girl. 



104 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

John Oblock was not the only father who tramped all night 
through the streets of Collinwood. The streets are turned to 
mire with the wandering of men and women. All night, Ob- 
lock dimly remembered, men had passed and repassed him. 

Sickening Scenes. 

All day long in the fire shed adjoining the town hall the 
people of Collinw^ood toiled in their second sickening day — a 
day of aftermath — the day of identification of the charred, 
blackened and half naked dead. Over and around the others a 
continuous crowd passed and passed, passed again and again, 
trying and trying, many of them in vain, to find some clew 
that would establish the identity of their loved ones. 

Those bodies that were left at the end were the survival of 
the unfittest. Many w^ere burned to the bone, clothes entirely 
gone, often headless, footless trunks, mangled beyond possi- 
bility of recognition. 

But still the crowds of anxious men and women passed in 
the pathetic review. 

"If I could but know that what is left of my boy was in 
my own hands," mourned a mother. "I can't bear to leave nis 
body if it is here. I must find it, must find it." 

Lost Three Children. 

There were those who had lost three children, but had only 
found two, or one. There were those who had lost two and 
could identify but one. Mothers and sisters and brothers 
came to aid in the search. Sometimes they brought tiny un- 
derwear and stockings to match with the torn clothes on the 
limbs of the unidentified dead. 

Outside held back by ropes and a squad o£ police under the 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 105 

command of Capt. Schmunk of the Cleveland police, was a 
constant crowd of friends and curiosity seekers. They could 
be told apart at a glance. Those who had lost relatives were 
haggard eyed. As the fathers and mothers went in the other 
relatives waited outside, hanging on the ropes, watching for 
a favorable word. Their faces told tragic stories. 

As for the others — they stared, boldly, constantly, calling 
each other's attention as they caught glimpses of suffering and 
anguish, craning their necks as the ambulance men came out 
with bundles in hand, and drove quickly away to the private 
morgues keeping count, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty- 
three. 

Protects Sorrowing Relatives. 

Deputy Coroner McNeil placed a shield before the door to 
protect the sorrowing relatives from the gaze of the curious, 
but it had no effect on their numbers. Every car from the city 
brought its load. As fast as one group went away satisfied, 
anotner crowded into the place. 

The crowd of searchers was quieter than that of the first 
day, when the first great anguish of death and loss had left 
them staring disheveled, laughing, shrieking, tearing hair, 
faintmg, maddened by their loss. As the hours rolled on, and 
they examined body after body, they became dulled, the 
pain nerves were deadened. 

Only trembling hands showed the tumult within when 
the poor, bereaved ones compared clothing, examined shoes, 
searched for trinkets — a marble or a watch. They talked 
comparatively calmly. They had seen so many bodies, had 
been nearly sure so many times. 

Only once in a while would there be a shriek or a burst of 
hysterical weeping as a father or a mother threw themselves 



106 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

on the dingy floor, clutching a trinket or a bit of cloth that 
had made them sure. 

Sadly filing out of the morgue at the end of the day were 
those who had failed, who had to go away leaving their ba- 
bies lying on the floor among the unrecognizable masses of 
the unknown. 

Street Scene of Grief. 

Death's hand laid heavily upon Arcade avenue. In seven- 
teen houses, fifteen in a row, and three adjoining each other 
across the street, nineteen are dead. The presence of wdiite 
crape on the doors along the street is almost monotonous. 

In the parlor of the third house from Park avenue, 5704, 
stood a white casket in which lie the remains of Norman Shep- 
herd, twelve. F"rom that house of the dead stretches a long, 
unbroken line of homes, with its corpse in every parlor. 

Next door at 5718, was the body of ]\Iildred Cunningham. 
Then comes that of Earle Grant, thirteen, at 5806; Dilc Clark, 
nine at 5812; Florence Clayton, eight, at 5816; Wilfred Hook, 
eight, at 5908, and Mabel Sigler, ten, 6012. 

In the seventh house, 6212, there were three dead — Caroline 
Kern, ten ; Rudolph Kern, twelve, and .\nnie Kern, nine. Next 
door, at 6124, was the body of Willie Smith, nine. 

Death, alw^ays erratic, then jumped across the street, taking 
four in three adjoining houses. There was Edward Kanowski. 
seven, at 6215; Don Rush, thirteen, at 6107, and Helen and 
Clara Ritz, sisters, eight and seven, at 6007. 

The same age, chums since babyhood, their fathers brothers 
and partners in business, death did not divide them. Two lit- 
tle charred bodies were identified side by side in the morgue, 
by the sister of one of the boys. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 107 

Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Gould live at 5416 Maple street, Collin- 
wood. Their boy was Albert Gould. Just opposite at 5412 
Poplar street, live Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Gould. Raymond 
Gould- was the pride of that home. The two boys were al- 
most exactly the same age, eleven years. 

Tuesday evening they spent together at the home of Albert, 
playing games until 10:30. As usual Wednesday morning 
they went to school together. The news of the fire com- 
pletely prostrated the two mothers. A sixteen-year-old-sistcr 
of Albert was sent to identify the bodies. She found them side 
by side. Raymond was identified by his cuff buttons and 
Albert by his shoes and sweater and a crumpled wet paper 
Jn his pocket, covered with writing in his childish hand. The 
fathers of the boys, contractors, are engaged in the erection 
ib buildings in West Virginia. They were telegraphed 
for. Saturday at the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Gould on 
Maple street the double funeral of the boys was held. 

Mother Shopping During Fire. 

Mrs. Schwans of 597 Adamson street, Collinwood, who lost 
three children, Edwin, twelve; Hulda, eleven, and Freddie, 
eight years old, was shopping in Cleveland when the fire broke 
out. Her eldest boy, Rudolph, she had left at home with the 
baby. 

"The newsboys on tiie car calling out the special was the 
first I knew of it," said ]\Irs. Schwans. "When I came to 
the school they were taking the children out. Oh, if I had 
not gone awa}' ; but I could not have saved them anyway," 
she moaned as she rocked back and forth. 

The poor half crazed mothers did not know how to try to 
identify their dead, looking in restless terror first at one 



108 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

burned little form and then at another. "Look carefully 
now," an attendant begged of a poor foreign woman who 
sought her child. "I could tell my boy's coat ; it was a little 
plaid coat," sobbed one mother, while another thought her 
boy's little new red sweater with braid on the front would 
serve to lead her to her own. 

"I was ironing when I heard the alarm," said ]\Irs. Rostock 
of 5315 Lake avenue, who lost a boy, Amiel, aged fourteen, 
and a little girl, Lillian, six. I ran over to the building in my 
bare feet ; but oh, I could not see them, and to think of my 
little, little girl." 

Three other children are living, all boys. 

There was joy at the home of ]\latt Drecek, 4th street Mon- 
day before the fire. There was poverty ,too — Drecek, like 
hundreds of others in the Collinwood Greiner settlement, had 
been working but two days a week lately. But there was 
joy, anyway. 

It was this — a baby had come. Mary, thirteen ; Lena, 
twelve; John, ten; Amelia, nine; Clara, five, and Paul, three, 
all clustered about and gazed rapturously upon the little 
pink and white bundle that their mother so proudly displayed 
to them. 

Joy Flees Home. 

That was Monday. The joy fled Wednesday. In the terri- 
ble fire that ravaged the Lakeview school building and took 
a toll of human life that has appalled the world, ]\Iary and 
Lena died. John and Amelia climbed out of a window and 
lived. But the terrible fact remained — Mary and Lena were 
dead. They never would see baby again. 

Drecek tried to keep the terrible news from his wife, but 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 109 

the children told her in spite of him. She swooned at the 
news. Neighbors brought a doctor — he said that she lay- 
between life and death. 

The husband was down at the morgue when that happend, 
vainly hunting his Mary and Lena in the long rows of black- 
ened corpses. He stayed all afternoon, he stayed until after 
midnight, when they transferred the unidentified from the 
Lake Shore shops to the town hall. 

Then he hurried away again. He ate no breakfast, there 
was hardly enough for the children. At noon he had been 
unable yet to pick out the bodies of ]\Iary and Lena. He 
went outside — and fainted in the street, from hunger, ex- 
haustion, worry and grief. 

Revived, he refused to leave. "Fm going to get my Mary 
and my Lena," he wailed. Between his sobs, he told some- 
one of the "kinder" and the woman at home and of the new 
baby. 

In a few minutes the relief corps had sent a physician and a 
nurse out to the little house on 4th street. They sent out 
provisions too. Drecek wouldn't eat. They let him stay 
there in the street. 



CHAPTER X. 
RICH WOMAN LOSES BABY. 

'TERRIBLE BEYOND ALL DESCRIPTION!" CRIES 
DR. WILLIAMS. . 

"This is a terrible thing; awful beyond description," said 
Dr. Williams, as he stood and watched the throng of anxious 
relatives moving disconsolately from body to body. 

"Are there no injured in the hospitals? I've lost my baby, 
my darling boy," moaned a well-dressed woman who stepped 
out from the line of people moving slowly past a row of bodies. 
Upon being told that there were few injured and that she had 
better persevere in her search she joined the mournful proces- 
sion again. 

The morgue was a great Icveler. Women richly attired, 
wearing furs and other tokens of comparative wealth, mingled 
with women of plainly foreign extraction, with shawls thrown 
over their heads and garments betokening the pinch of pov- 
erty. They consoled one another. 

Strong Comfort the Weak. 

The weaker, on the verge of hysterics, were comforted by 
the stronger, regardless of social position. The men. most of 
them tearless, but grieving none the less, were silent for the 
most part upon attaining the object of their search. 

As fast as the bodies were identified they were placed in 
charge of the undertakers and were taken from the building, 
the coroner seeing every body removed and collecting the 
tags upon which the identifications were marked. In this way 
an accurate tab was kept on the bodies and the identifications. 

The scene at the morgue was particularly heartrending to 
the employes of the Lake Shore Railroad, who were engaged 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 111 

in escorting the stricken parents and relatives through the 
rows of corpses. Many of the dead children were known to 
them and in many cases the parents were fellow workmen. 

Dr. Williams was particularly grieved by the terrible affair, 
as he knew personally nearly three-quarters of the boys and 
girls whose bodies were before him. Work was suspended in 
all of the Lake Shore shops to give those employees whose 
loved ones were victims of the fire a chance to visit the 
morgue. At 5 :30 o'clock workingmen from other shops in 
Collinwood flocked to the warehouse with their wives and until 
well on into the night the inspection continued. 

Some of the women, loath to leave until they had discovered 
some trace of their children, begged to be allowed to continue 
tlie search far into the night, but when most of the corpses had 
been identified the morgue was closed to visitors and the 
bodies remaining were taken to the town hall. 

Father Fights Official. 

A grief-crazed father fought with an ambulance driver for 
a sight of his two little children who had been burned to 
death. 

A. Ziehm had driven from the Lake Shore morgue with the 
bodies of Olga and John Neibert, Fifth and Forest-sts. 

"Drive on to the undertaker's," bade the father, John Nei- 
bert. 

Ziehm started on. In a moment the father changed his mind 
and demanded a sight of the bodies. He sprang to the horse's 
head and grasped the bridle. Neighbors rushed to join him 
and someone sent in a call for the police. 

The bodies were taken from the ambulance and carried 
into the Neibert home. 

The saddest place in Collinwood, the village of many sor- 



112 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

rows, that day was the dead house. Between the narrow 
walls of the fire station, surrounded by all that had failed to 
save, lay the blackened things that once were smiling chil- 
dren. 

The hush was rarely broken and when it was the cry or 
moan came from the lips of a father or mother. Through the 
building filed the real sufferers by the fire — those who lost 
children. 

But a greater burden of grief came to those who failed to 
be sure in looking over the little forms. Some of the bodies 
never were identified. 

Crowds of Sightseers. 

Twenty-five bodies were left in the morgue the night after 
the fire. Another day was given relatives to claim their dead, 
and then the remaining bodies were -taken to Shepard's 
morgue for burial at the expense of the village. 

Crowds of sightseers pressed against the rope in front of the 
morgue all day, the police permitting only those who had rela- 
tives in the fire to pass between their lines. The guards were 
Cleveland patrolmen under the command of Captain Schmunk. 
Collinwood police were also on guard. 

Harry McNeill, deputy coroner, long on duty, watched the 
bodies of the children, and superintended the work of identi- 
fication. As soon as a body was recognized it was given to 
an undertaker. 

Father Loses Control. 

One of the most heartrending cases was that of Leo B. 
Harvey, who has been working at Geneva, O. He had two 
children attending the school. His first intimation of the dis- 



i 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 113 

aster came in a n'ewspaper Wednesday night. He went to 
Cleveland, arriving late in the morning. Harry, his fourteen- 
year-old son, was saved. Claude, seven years old, had disap- 
peared. When he discovered that his son was not to be rec- 
ognized among the bodies he lost self-control. 

"I want to throw myself beneath a train," he cried. 

Friends finally took him away. 

When Mrs. John Centener, who lives at No. 512 Collamer 
street, came to look for her thirteen-year-old son George, 
she found one body that she thought might be his. She looked 
searchingly at the twisted face but was not sure. Then she 
looked at a shred of underwear which stuck to the body. 

Not George's Button. 

"No, no, those are not George's buttons," she said. "If 
there was only a piece of his red sweater I could tell him.' 

She went away, doubt adding to her grief. 

Bearing in his hand an apron of his wife's, John Polonsky, 
No. 447 Cedar street, went to seek the body of his son Victor, 
nme years old. The boy had worn a little shirt made of ma- 
terial like that of the apron. After he had searched the faces 
and clothes of a score of little bodies he found one with a shred 
of a shirt clinging still to a shriveled arm. He compared the 
two pieces of cloth. They were the same. It was his son. 

Mrs. Sodma, who lost three children in the fire, went for the 
second time to the morgue. Tlie night after the fire she iden- 
tified her son, but her two daughters, Elizabeth, twelve years 
old, and Erma, ten years old, were still among the missing. 

She said that Elizabeth had worn a pair of earrings with four 
stones in each of them and a bracelet. Although she walked 
from body to body she could find no trace of earrings or brace- 



114 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

let or the red waist and blue skirt worn by Erma. She left 
brokenhearted. 

Mrs. Oscar Swanson, No. 5709 Adams street, lost three 
children. The bodies of eight-year-old Fred and twelve-year- 
old Edwin were identified. She was seeking that 
of Hulda, ten years old. She looked at the rows of bodies 
twice, then three times. Finally she found a body that she 
though might be that of her child. She told McNeil of a re- 
cent tooth filling. He fingered the shreads of clothing. 

Identified by a Tooth. 

Finally an undertaker's man pried open the mouth, and a 
recently filled tooth was revealed. The mother became hys- 
terical and nearly fainted. The body was taken away. 

With a little shoe in his hand. William J. Parr sought the 
body of his son, Harry, eight years old. Mr. Parr lives at 
No. 218 Park street. W^ith the assistance of a piece of under- 
clothing, he recognized the body. His other son, Thomas, 
ten years old, had saved his life by leaping from a second-story 
window. 

Recognizes Body By Clothing. 

The wife of John Oblak, No. 424 Spruce street, was pros- 
trated when her son, John, thirteen years old was ■ ^ported 
among the missing. Her husband found a body that he 
thought was that of his son, and yet was doubtful. He tore 
a patch from the charred clothing and took it hor le to the 
mother. She recognized her handiwork. Mary, the little 
daughter of the family, had saved her life ly jumping from a 
window. 

Albert Ritzi, Mo. 6007 Arcade street, tried in vain to find 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 113 

the bodies of his two girls, Helen, agen nine, and Clara, aged 
seven. Again and again he bent over the faces. He was un- 
successful. 

Feared to Enter. 

bringing his wife, George Morrelle, who lived at No. 4713 
Charles street, came to the door of the deadhouse. They 
sought the body of their eight-year-old daughter, Maria. Mrs. 
Morrelle cast one glance at the room. Her face grew pale and 
then she collapsed. The father found a body which looked 
like his little daughter. He took the dress out to show it to 
his wife. She shook her head — it was not the one. 

Screams of despair, sobs of agony and groans of anguish 
were wrenched from the mothers and sisters of the victims as 
the searchers walked from row to row, examining fragments 
of dresses, pieces of waists and trousers, pocket-knives and 
marbles in an effort to establish the identity of the dead. 

One of the first body identified was Nils Thompson, seven 
years, of No. 405 Collamer street. "My God, that's Nils!" 
cried Mrs. Anna Thompson, the mother, as she gazed upon a 
blackened corpse in the first row she encountered on entering 
the building. 

Led Away by Sister. 

Tears streaming down her face she was led away by her sis- 
ter, but she bore up bravely for she still had a task to perform 
— the locating of the body of Thomas, her oldest son. Three- 
quarters of an hour later, while inspecting a long row of 
bodies charred and twisted almost beyond recognition, she 
found the body of her son. She nearly fainted and was taken 
to the second flood of the building, where nurses gave her 
.assistance. 



116 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

The next body identified was that of Henry Schultz, nine 
years old, No. 4623 Westropp avenue. Again a mother recog- 
nized the torn fragments of a son, and, weeping, was led away. 
Then as the crowd inside the building increased in size the 
identifications came faster. 

Men stood sobbing ovcr'the bodies of their loved ones. At 
times cries of women resounded from all parts of the building. 
The doctors were busy with the relief-giving hypodermics. 

Told by the Clothing. 

"That's Irene ; I know it is her. I can tell by the clothes," 
wailed Helen Davis as she leaned over the body of her sister, 
Irene, No. 4615 Westropp avenue, and then the identification 
was made complete by the discovery of the finger ring. 

Mrs. Lodge, mother of Harry Lodge, eleven years old, of 
No. 4910 Scott street, fainted when by means of a piece of a 
red sweater she recognized the charred remnant of a body as 
that of her son. She was taken to the hospital and placed in 
care of the nurses on the second floor of the building. 

Almost distracted with gri'ef, the parents of Thomas and 
Glen Sanderson, of No. 438 Park avenue, paced from one end 
of the building to the other, inspecting the dead in the hope of 
recognizing the bodies of the children. Late in the afternoon 
their search was rewarded. Both bodies were identified. 

Pitiful in the extreme was the sight presented by the bodies 
in the west end of the temporary morgue. The lower clothing; 
of most of the children, though charred and soiled, was pretty 
well preserved. The pockets of the boys were searched and 
the treasures hidden so carefully from the teachers' eyes were 
brought forth and placed on top of the blankets. 

Marbles, slingshots and other articles were placed en view. 



I 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 117 

A watch with a nickel case was taken from the body of one 
boy. The timepiece had stopped at 11:25 o'clock. A watch 
was also found on the body of another boy near by. The 
hands had stopped at 1 o'clock, indicating that the body had 
been taken from far down in the heap of mangled corpses 
blocking the doorway of the school and that it had taken the 
heat a longer time to reach it than the others. From the girls' 
clothing were taken handkerchiefs and in some instances pen- 
nies and chewing gum were found rolled in the corners of 
pieces of cloth. 

One of the most affecting scenes at the morgue occurred 
when Albert Gould, eleven years old, of No. 5416 Maple street, 
and Raymond Gould, also eleven years old, of Poplar street, 
cousins, were found lying side by side among the unidentified 
dead. A sister of Albert Gould made the discovery, recog- 
nizing a knife found in the boy's pocket. 

Heartrending Scenes Witnessed. 

"And I made him go ! I made him go !" 

The wailing voice rose in a quavering chant above the heads 
of the silent crowd crushed against a door that led into the im- 
provised morgue at the Lake Shore shops. Most of them 
were men, with stern, set faces. A woman, here and there, 
stood with bowed head. Silent, they all were, except wncn 
one raised his voice for a moment in that solemn, wailing chant 
which told of his own woe, while the living humanity about 
him swayed in the common sympathy. 

"He was my only boy. And I am old," the voice went on. 
"Three weeks ago he broke his arm. This was his first morn- 
ing at school. He didn't want to go. But I made him go. I 
made him go." 



118 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Again the crowd swayed and a low* groan swept over the 
mass of waiting ones. 

The nanow door opened. Men and women struggled, 
straining in silence, to enter. 

His Children Among the Dead. 

"Joe Curran," cried the keeper of the door. 

"Joe Curran," echoed through the crowd. 

"Here !" cried one. 

"Let that man in," commanded the doorkeeper. "His two 
children are here." 

Immediately a lane formed and Joe Curran went in. 

Pressed close against the unyielding door stood a portly, 
prosperous looking man. His face was impassive, but as he 
stood, waiting, his head leanded against the door, he moaned. 

"You have someone in there?" asked the next one. 

"My oldest boy," answered the man, and, turning, he pressed 
his face against the door. 

Again the silence — waiting. Presently another chant arose. 

"He knew me. He called to me: 'Papa, help me.' I had 
hold of him. I put out the fire in his hair. I pulled his arms 
out of their sockets. And I couldn't save him." 

Again the crowd swayed in a common agony and the com- 
mon groan swept over it. 

The little door opened, 

■'Don't push. Don't crowed. Be careful of the women," 
shouted the doorkeeper, grimly kind. 

"Let me in! Let me in! My children are in there!" cried a 
voice from the rear. 

"They are all in here,' answered the doorkeeper. "Your 
turn will come." 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 119 

This time the visitor was wedged in with the bunch of 10 
admitted. At his feet stretched an orderly row of white- 
sheeted forms. The white-sheeted were the identified. In 
charge of each row was a railroad man, aiding the fathers and 
mothers who had come to find their own. Order was every- 
where. And silence was everywhere. The searchers picked 
their way carefully among the rows of blackened bodies. 

"Girl or boy?" asked the attendant, as each came to him. 
And he turned back the gray blanket or the gray quilt for the 
inspection of some father or mother. 

One old man hurried from one little form to another, look- 
ing only at the shoes. Down on his knees he went each time. 
Finally he threw up both hands. 

Kisses the Burned Feet. 

"It is she !" he cried. "I know, because this morning I fixed 
her shoes for the mud. I am the grandfather," he added, pa- 
thetically, as he bent over and kissed the pitiful little feet. 

A little woman, with bowed head and clasped hands, hur- 
ried by. 

"Did you find them?" asked a visitor. 

"Yes, ma'am. Both of them," she said, dully. 

Few were weeping. They had gone beyond that. They 
were just searching, searching. 

One man was gazing at an unrecognizable mass of burned 
flesh and bones. 

"It is horrible," involuntarily exclaimed a bystander, under 
his breath. He heard him, and looked up, 

"Not horrible," he said, "when your own child is here." 

The last row was reached. There were few white sheets 
here, for there was little else than a few charred bones. 



CHAPTER XI. 

TEACHERS TELL OF HORROR. 

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION AS TO THE CAUSE 
OF THE FIRE. 

Before the last charred body had been removed from the 
ruins of the schoolhouse an informal investigation had been 
begun to determine the cause of the fire. 

Several of the school officials claimed that an incendiary 
started the fire. Here are the reasons why they declared it 
appeared the building must have been set on fire : 

1. There was no gas in the building. 

2. No heating pipes ran through the lumber closet under 
the stairs where the fire started. 

3. There were no electric wires in the closet. 

4. Spontaneous combustion is not considered a feasible 
solution. 

5. There is no evidence that the blaze was started by 
children in play. 

Certain it is that the flames were first seen near the front 
door coming up from the basement steps. This is directly 
over the closet in which three girls were hiding while playing a 
game. 

The architects scouted the theory that the flames crawled 
to the front of the building from the furnace. The possil^ility 
that a child might have accidentally caused the fire developed 
in the story told by Janitor Hirter, who testified that the first 
knowledge he had of the fire was from three girls who came 
up from the basement. 

"I ran upstairs," said Hirter, who lost three children in the 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 121 

fire, '"and gave the signal for fire drill — three taps on the gong. 
Then I threw open all of the doors leading to the outside. 
These consisted of two double pairs of doors in the front and 
rear of the building. After that I did all in my power to aid 
in rescuing pupils."' 

The testimony as to whether both rear doors were open was 
conflicting. The plans show the rear doors opening out, not 
in. Whether they were built according to the plan was in dis- 
pute. The evidence is, of course, destroyed. 

Janitor Hirter was at first made to bear the major portion 
of the blame. Feeling against him ran high in CoUinwood. 
One father, crazed by grief, made an attempt upon the life of 
Hirter, but wa; restrained with difficulty. Hirter was then 
guarded by the police. 

In addition to the blame, whether justified or not, that was 
being heaped upon him, Hirter broke down with grief over the 
loss of three of his own children in the fire, and for a time 
raved, almost beside himself. 

Hirter declared the fire could not have started from the 
furnace. The day was comparatively warm, and Hirter de- 
clared he maintained the fires at a lower heat than usual 
throughout the early part of the morning. 

Fearing he had not sufficiently warmed the building he was, 
according to his story, on his way to open the furnace drafts 
and increase the heat when he was met by the three little 
girls who told him there was a fire. 

As these three little girls were among the dead their knowl- 
edge of the fire never will be known. 

"I was sweeping in the basement," said Hirter, "when the 
three little girls came running through. Suddenly I looked 
and saw a wisp of smoke curling from beneath the stairway. 



122 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Crying, a crowd of little children came rushing through the 
hallways. 

Those in the rear, not realizing the danger, pressed forward 
and crowded the line over the threshold and down the steps to 
tlie landing, where they were sufifocated by the flames and 
crushed to death in the stampede." 

Tales Told By Survivors. 

Thrilling and dramatic in the extreme are the tales of 
horror told by the survivors of the great fire in which so many 
went down to death. 

As soon as order was restored in the village the board of 
education began an investigation of the fire. The first witness 
was Miss Pearl Lynn, who was badly burned. 

Aliss Lynn said she w-as teacher of the high division, second 
grade, at Lake View school. Her room was at the southwest 
corner of the first floor. 

She was present Wednesday morning. School w^as called 
at 8:30. as usual. Matters went as usual until 9:30 or 9.35 
a. m. Then a fire alarm was given. The alarm consisted oi 
four taps of the general gong in the lower hall. 

She heard the alarm. The children in her room took their 
places in line as quickly as they could, the first file facing the 
door. 

They didn't stop for their wTaps. There was no confusion. 
Good order was maintained. Everything was the same as in 
a fire drill, which the children supposed it was. 

]\liss Lynn said they had had fire drill three times this year, 
always unexpectedly. 

In such cases the pupils rise from their seats and form in 
line. The teacher is at the door and opens it when they have 
the line formed. They form on a quick trot. 



i 
I 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 123 

The door is at one of the front corners of the room. The 
seats are arranged so the children form a double line in the 
broad aisle, facing the door. This program was carried out 
Wednesday morning. 

'T was at the door," said Miss Lynn. "The door was open. 
There was no confusion at that time. Opening the door is the 
signal for the children to pass. 

"The door swings outward into the hall. I opened it and the 
children passed into the hall. As soon as they smelled the 
smoke they became somewhat excited. 

Guided the Children. 

'T got on the outside to guide them. The stairway was 
partly filled with children when we passed out. But we had a 
chance to pass down at one side. 

"Two or three children got away from me and went down 
toward the west door. As soon as I got my school on the 
stairway I got behind them. 

"When I got two or three steps from the bottom of the 
stairs I found some of the children had fallen. To give them 
a chance to rise, I held the others back a little, what I could, 
with my body. 

"There was a great crush behind me. I myself was borne 
down. Two or three children were under me when I fell, who 
hadn't recovered their feet. 

"Ordinarily my children take the west exit in leaving the 
building. There are only two exits, the other being at the 
east side." 

"Does the fire drill cover any alternative in case of emer- 
gency? Do you ever go out the other entrance? 

"My children never went out the east entrance. 



124 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Alost of mine got to the entrance without stumbling. The 
stairway was partly filled with other children who had got out 
first. The west side consists of a stairway about five or six 
feet wide leading down. Next to that is a pair of double doors 
arranged to swing outward. 

"One door is fastened with a spring catch at the top. That 
door is the left. The other, at the right, fastens to the othei 
door. 

Door Usually Half Open. 

"During sessions this door is usually half open and the othei 
half is shut. By open I mean unfastened. While the chil- 
dren were passing out the other door was fastened at the top. 

"I can't tell how the fire drill is prescribed or regulated. 
I have had verbal instructions as to fire drills ; as to conduct- 
ing them. We see the children out of doors ; keep them in 
line outside the building until all are out. Then they march 
back in order. The last out are the first to go back. 

"My room is not the nearest to the west entrance. Miss 
Fiske's room and mine are equally distant from it. No other 
room is nearer than ours. 

At this point the witness was overcome and broke into sobs. 
When she recovered her composure she resumed : 

"I was not given any instructions in connection with the 
outer door. I know of none given to any one in connection 
with the outer door. The bottom of the stairs was blocked 
when I got there. The children under me were not of my 
school. T fell down owing to the crush above. The children 
at the bottom of the steps were not passing out freely when 
I got there. 

"The right hand door, which was open, is about three feet 



I 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 125 

wide. The children were being impeded by others who had 
fallen to the floor. 

"The other door was finally opened by Mr. Hirter the jani- 
tor. When I first came to the stairs I didn't see Mr. Hirter. 
I don't know where he was. 

"The first I saw of him was about one minute after we be- 
gan to encounter difficulties. He rushed to the door, seized 
it and tried to force it open. 

Fastened At The Top. 

"It was fastened at the top as usual. There was nothing 
wrong with it. 

"If both doors had been open when I reached the top of the 
stairs a few more of us would have been able to get out quicker 
than we did. If the doors were twice as wide it wouldn't 
have made much difference. 

"The stairways were not broad enough to accommodate the 
number of children coming down. 

"There was one difference not customary at fire drills. 
Three schools in all were using the west door, mine. Miss 
Fiske's and Miss Urgen's. 

"The last one usually went out the east door, but had 
encountered flames and couldn't. Mine was the second school 
to reach the door. 

"The addition of one more school than usual caused the 
overcrowding of the stairway. 

"We had always gone through the same entrance at fire 
drills. I know of no discussion of anything to do in case it 
was impossible to use the west door. 

"The work of rescue began right away. People came rush- 
ing and began taking out the children as fast as they could. 



126 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

I have 34 pupils. There were 33 present the morning of the 
fire. 

"The doors I have spoken of were the inner of two sets of 
doors, about two and one-half feet from the foot of the stairs. 

"Beyond these were the other doors, about the same dis- 
tance, or three feet, just far enough to allow the inner doors to 
swing outward and clear the outer doors. 

"The outside doors are very similar to the inner. I think 
both outside doors were open. I am not positive. 

"One was open anyway. I think both. I never examined 
the fastenings of the outer doors. Ordinarily in fire drills I 
find the outer doors standing apen. both the right and the left 
hand doors. 

"These are not storm doors, but permanent doors. They are 
not always standing open. 

"In fire drills I don't know how- it is. I always find them 
open or unfastened. I am not positive whether the head child 
has to push the doors open. 

Three Fire Drills Held. 

"We have had three fire drills since January 1, but I don't 
know about the opening of the doors. I don't think the outjt 
door is fastened at the top, as half of the inner door is. The 
outer doors swing outward. 

"This morning all the children who passed the inner door 
passed through the outer one. 

"The right hand inner door and both the outer ones were 
open. I could see that. 

"At fire drills the teachers are the only ones who assist. I 
don't know of any duties of the janitor in fire drills. He is 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 127 

usually there, near the east entrance. So far as I know he has 
no duties in connection with lire drills." 

Questioned as to how she made her escape, Miss Lynn said : 

"I was dragged out forcibly by the arms. Mr. Dorn was 
one of the men who did it. I don't know the others. One 
child at least was under me at the time." 

Smoke Brings The Panic. 

"My children were going down in good order," Miss Lynn 
resumed, "until they smelled the smoke. I don't know about 
the other schools. 

"There came a very great pressure from behind almost im- 
mediately. I don't know what caused it. I didn't see any 
flames. 

"I was almost sufTocated with smoke when I reached the 
stairs. I think the smoke was coming from the east, from the 
front part of the hallway. 

"Fire drill instructions come from the principal. I don't 
know who gave the signal. I don't know where Mr. Hirter 
was at the time." 

Miss Lynn, who was suffering from painful burns along her 
back, was then excused. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HEROINE OF FIRE, 

LITTLE GIRL WHO FIRST SAW THE SMOKE TELLS 
HER STORY. 

Emma Neibert the child said to have seen the smoke first 
and to have alarmed the janitor, was called. 

She said she was thirteen years old and a pupil in Miss 
Bodey's room. She was present Wednesday morning, had 
occasion to visit the basement and on her way down saw 
smoke coming up in the front of the hall. 

"I told Mr. Hirter," said the child. '"What's the matter?' 
I hollered to him. I think he didn't understand me. I told 
him again and he went and rang the fire bell. I went and 
stood in the front door. 

"I went down the stairs near the east entrance. I was just 
going downstairs to the basement when I saw the smoke. I 
didn't go on down. 

"Mr. Hirter came up where the smoke was and rang the 
fire bell. He ran right past me. There was just a little smoke 
coming up then. 

Calls Him A Second Time. 

"When I hollered to him the second time the rooms below 
were full of smoke. I stood there a long time, about five min- 
utes, before I called a second time. He was by the furnace. 
I could see him. There was just a little smoke then. 

(A test proved that the child's idea of "five minutes" was 
about 20 seconds.) 

"Mr. Hirter ran and sounded the bell. I ran out the front 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 129 

of- the building and didn't see him again. I opened one side 
of the door and hooked it back. Just one side of the door was 
open. The inside doors were open. 

"I only opened the outside door, which I hooked back. I 
put the hook on the string on the handle of the door." 

Emma became confused and said she pulled the door back 
inwardly. (It was explained that the hook was used to keep 
the door from shutting on its spring check when children were 
passing out.) 

Proves Herself A Heroine. 

"Mr. Hirter," resumed the child, "went to Miss Moran's old 
room to ring the bell after I called him," she said. "I ran out- 
side. About 10 children came out the front door. Then I 
went away. 

"I left the doors open. The right hand door was open. The 
right hand outer door was closed. I opened it and hooked it 
back. I heard no noise, I saw smoke, but no flame. 

"I didn't see any girls playing hide and seek in the basement 
this morning. I know a Lizzie — Lizzie Sodoma. She is lost. 
She was in Miss Gollmer's room. There was an Anna in our 
room. Anna Gordon. Miss Bodey is my teacher. I don't 
know any Mary." 

The girl was then excused. It was then nearly midnight. 
The party of teachers, only one of whom had testified, was 
waiting in another room. 

As that room had grown chilly, they were all ushered into 
the library, where the hearing was in progress. They presented 
a saddening appearance, being haggard with the experiences 
of the day. 

Joseph Neill was called. He lived near the building. He 



130 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

was taking care of his baby and his wife was out hanging 
up clothes when she saw the fire and called to him. He ran 
over to the school. 

"There were quite a number of teachers and children on the 
fire escape then," he said. 

"We got them all down. I went to the back door and found 
a pile of young ones burning to death. 

"AVe pulled them out as long as we could. The south door 
was open. 

"I tried to pull down the wooden partition to give us more 
room. I don't know about the north door. The space between 
the doors wps about five feet wide. The doors swung out. 

Did Not Notice It. 

"I didn't notice the condition of the inside doors. The}- were 
open, whatever way they swung. I think the south door was 
fastened open. 

"1 ran home to get an ax to knock out the partition. When 
I got back I couldn't get near the building. I live 400 or 500 
feet from the building on the same side of the street to the 
north. 

"I think it was not more than 10 or 15 minutes at the out- 
side before it was all over and we could do no more." 

Janitor Tells Story. 

When Fred Hirter. janitor of the school, who was at first 
blamed for the tragedy, was called, a hush fell on the room. 

He gave his testimony with remarkable coherence, consid- 
ering that he had lost three of his own children in the disaster. 

"I am janitor of the Lake View building," he said. "I have 
charge of the whole building. I have no assistance. • i 



\ 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 131 

"I do the cleaning, heating and so on. I have been there a 
3'ear, since the addition of four rooms was built a year ago. 
Before that my wife had it and I helped her before going to 
work in the morning. I had a job. My woman fired the 
boilers. 

"At night I went and wheeled the coal for the next day and 
did the heavy work. I was a car inspector for 14 years for Air. 
Mooney. 

"I had worked in greenhouses in Germany for about 16 years 
and fired the boilers. That was steam heating boilers, about 
the same as in the school. 

In Excellent Condition. 

"The heating apparatus in the school building was in first- 
rate condition all the time. We had had no trouble within a 
week. The furnaces were not smoking or acting badly. I had 
had no trouble in heating the building. I told the teachers 
this morning that one or two pounds of steam would keep 
them warm. 

"At 9 :30 I went down and found the steam down to a pound 
or a pound and a half. The fire was very low. I just shoveled 
in two or three shovelfuls of coal in each furnace. Then 1 
shut the dampers and swept the basement, the fire pit, as usual. 

"Then a little girl came down on the stairway. She called 
me and said there was a fire in the building. I told her to 
run out. 

"I went and rang the bell. I notified the teachers. I tried 
to open the windows and knocked them out when I couldn't. 
I think there were three girls in the hall. 

"If you were to kill me, I couldn't tell what girl it was that 
called me. There wasn't much smoke then. I ran to Miss 



132 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Irwin's room and rang the bell there. That was No. 1 room 
on the first floor. The bell was in there. 

"There was no bell in the basement. On the second floor in 
No. 5 room is a bell (connection). Miss Irwin's room is in the 
northeast corner. 

"I ran past where the smoke was near the east entrance and 
went up stairs to the room. 

"When I came back the basement stairs were blazing al- 
ready and I couldn't get down the basement any more. It 
wasn't more than half a minute. It would have been nearer 
if there had been an alarm in the basement. 

Smoke Near The Landing. 

"I first saw the smoke in the center of the steps right near 
the landing of the stairs leading to the east door . The smoke 
was right at the turn where you go down to the basement. 
It was at the head of the basement stairs. The stairway is 
about half as wide as the landing. 

At this point Prosecuting Attorney McMahon and Assistant 
Prosecutor Carey arrived. 

"I was not asked to be present. I heard of the inquiry and 
came out," said McMahon. 

"My only official interest here lies in the question whether 
a crime has been committed. If so, I want to learn all that 
is to be known." 

"The doors are about two and one-half or three feet wide, 
that is, each half of the door," said Hirter, resuming. 

"The right hand door as you go out is fastened and the left 
hand door is open. Both the inner doors are always open. 
The inside doors are not fastened at the top by a bolt, never. 

"They could be fastened by the knobs, but never were. That 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 133 

is, the right hand door. The left hand door couldn't be fas- 
tened at all. There was no catch on it at all ; only a handle 
on the outside. 

"The inside doors stand unfastened all the time. They are 
not even closed. They were open this morning. I opened 
the outside doors myself when I saw the smoke. 

(Emma Neibert said she did this.) 

"They were just closed, not locked, when I came to them, I 
have both open when the children come down in fire drills. 
I have the right hand outer door bolted at the top during 
school hours. This morning I opened the door and fastened 
it back with the hook and chain. One half of the door has a 
door check and has to be chained. The other has no check 
and will stand open. 

Shut But Not Locked. 

"Then I ran up the stairway and went to the back door. 
The outside door was shut, but not locked. 

"I don't lock the doors except at 6 o'clock when I go home. 
At the west door there was nobody there. I opened the inner 
and outer doors. 

"Both the inner and outer doors were closed. One side, 
the left, was fastened. I don't know why the left hand door 
was fastened at this side of the building and the right hand 
door at the east side, except that the bolts are on that side. 

"I went and pushed up the bolt and hooked the door back. 
I saw nothing there, in the back part of the building. 

"Then I ran back to Miss Rose's room. I had opened the 
four back doors, all of them. 

(Miss Lynn had testified that she found one of them closed 
and fastened at the top.) 



134 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

These doors were all wide open before the children came 
down the stairway. 

"I went to Miss Rose's room, No. 2, and saw some boys 
in there. I opened the windows and let them out. Miss Rose's 
room is the southeast one on the first fioor. Miss Rose was 
already out. 

"There was no more line of children in the room. I met 
children at the top of the stairs on the main landing at the 
west entrance. 

"They were coming fast. I didn't stop there. I helped two 
boys out. One fell outside. I jumped out of a window to help 
him. 

"I saw Miss Rose trying to open the door, the inside door, 
which somebody had closed again. Miss Rose was trying to 
open it. 

''There was hardly any smoke there. It just came along the 
ceiling. The east entrance has an iron gate in front of it. It 
was open. It has been open since about a month ago. 

"That gate was open. I swear to that. The doors were all 
open, I swear to that. I did all I could. 

Finds Door Half Closed. 

"I went out the window to pick up a little boy who fell 
down. I found the door half closed. Miss Rose couldn't open 
it. I don't know why. 

"The bolt at the top has to be turned with the hand. The 
bolt was in perfect order at the rear entrance. At the front 
there is no bolt at all. It is not a spring bolt and won't close 
itself. 

"So I turned on it and opened it as before. When shut it 
catches without turning. It must have blown shut. 



i 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 135 

"I never gave a fire alarm before. I just went in Miss Ir- 
win's room and pulled it three times. 

"I never had any instructions about that, but had heard the 
principal give it a dozen times. My order is to open the doors 
as soon as I hear the alarm. 

Orders Given Verbally. 

"The board of education and Miss Moran, the principal, 
gave me those orders verbally. She didn't say which to open 
first. She simply said to open the doors as soon as I could. 

■'When I came up from the basement the first thing I did 
was to ring the alarm. Then I went and opened the doors. 

"All the outside doors were closed. One was bolted at each 
entrance. We had a fire drill obout two or three weeks ago. 
We have had them twice since January. 

"There was never any way of fastening the left hand doors 
back. 

Dark Doom Under Stairway. 

"There was nothing under the stairs when I first saw the 
smoke except a dark little room," continued the janitor. 

"Nothing is there but a box in which I fix up lime, with 
boards over it. The box had some lime in it. I got it last 
fall. I used it for whitewashing the basement. I had slacked 
it all before school began last fall. I had added no lime since 
then. 

"The box was about one and one-half by two feet. It was 
about half full of lime. The box had been under there for 
seven years. 

"The place has a door and is a sort of closet under the stairs 
going into the basement. It was all slacked lime in that box." 



136 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Replying to questions, the janitor said: 

"It was dry down there. I scrub those stairs. Water may 
run through. I last scrubbed them Saturday. Xo doubt some 
water leaked through the stairs into the box. 

Steam Pipe In Closet. 

"One steam pipe runs through the closet. It is covered 
with asbestos. The stairs are Georgia pine. 

"The pipe is not closer than three inches to the woodwork. 
The pipe and the asbestos were all right about a week ago. 

"The closet door has a key, but was open today. I had 
looked in there about an hour before. 

"Some girls were hiding in there. This was about 8 to 8:30. 
There was nothing in there when I drove the girls out. 

"I didn't notice whether there was anything in there. I 
didn't see anything, hear anything or smell anything." 

It was explained that the steam pipe mentioned was a cir- 
culation pipe, returning to the furnace, and was never very hot. 

"I don't know who the girls were in there." said Hirter. 
"They were little girls, fourth or fifth grade girls. I never saw 
any electric wires in there. There was none there. 

"We light the building by electricity, but there were no 
wires in there. "The nearest wire is by the boiler. There is a 
light in the vestibule at the east entrance." 

Any Boys Smoking? 

Question — Did you ever see any boys smoking in the base- 
ment? 

Hirter — Xot this year. There were some last season, but I 
haven't caught any boys smoking in the building this year. 

"I don't use any matches in the building," the janitor con- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 137 

tinned. 'T don't need any. I ain't got any in the building. 
I keep a fire all night and Sunday and bank it. 

"The valve on the little boiler is set at 15 pounds and on the 
big one at 10 pounds pressure before the safety valve acts. I 
never meddled with the valves. They were just as they were 
left. 

"There were three or four girls hiding in the closet. I can't 
tell any of their names. They had been attending the school 
three, four or five years. 

"They were about ten years old. I could tell them by sight. 
I never heard their last names. One of them was named 
Lizzie. One was Anna. One was Mary. If they are living 
yet I don't know. 

Playing Hide And Seek. 

"They were playing hide and seek. It happened many times 
like that. 

"They were just standing there in the closet, all three, wait- 
ing for some girl to come and find them. I don't know what 
girl was to find them. 

"They closed the door and stood inside in the dark. I heard 
them laughing. I opened the door and chased them out. The 
door has only a catch with a knob inside and outside. 

"The closet is about 25 feet east from the furnace door. 
There is a cement fioor in the basement and closet. 

"There was nothing in there but the little boards and possi- 
bly a little sawdust left from what I used in sweeping and the 
lime box. I keep no oil in the building. I used to have a little 
oil upstairs to put in a pan for the floor brushes. 

"I carry out the ashes every morning after the school is in. 
It takes about 20 minutes. I did it this morning." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

TRY TO SAVE SCHOLARS. 

TEACHER WHO LOST NEARLY ALL HER FLOCK 
GIVES GRAPHIC RECITAL. 

Miss Ethel Rose, 959 Adams avenue, teacher, told a graphic 
story. She said her room was No. 2 at the southeast corner 
of the first floor. 

"When I heard the alarm I opened the door and told the 
children to run outside as quickly as they could,"' she said. 

"The fire alarm is three gongs. It was the first time I had 
had a fire drill with this class. They had been in the building 
only four weeks. I can't say when we had the last drill. I 
think only once since Christmas. 

"Miss Moran gives the fire drill instructions. I line up the 
children as quickly as possibly, take them down the right hand 
side of the stairs, out the front door and around to the right 
to the same side of the building as my room. 

"This class not having had a fire drill, I told them to get in 
line and get out as fast as they could. I opened the door and 
went into the hall and they followed. 

Blocks Basement Doors, 

"I saw them all out of the room. I went downstairs, 
blocked the basement stairs and all went out the front door. 
I had 34 enrolled. Three were absent this morning. 

"In fire drills we always go out the same way. There are no 
instructions about varying the program at any time. 

"The two inner front doors were standing open. The one to 
the left was fastened back. They swung outward. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 139 

"My children were the first ones to go out there. I didn't 
notice a girl of twelve standing there. 

"Of the outer doors the left one was open and fastened with 
a chain and hook. The right-hand door, I think, was open. 
These doors are ordinarily open. 

"The right-hand door is generally closed when the children 
leave the building. I think this time the doors were open. 
I noticed there was more room than usual for the children 
to get out. 

"I noticed Miss Irwin trying to get her children out the 
back way. I tried to go to her through the hall. The flames 
were coming up. I went around outside. That took about a 
minute. 

Open And Fastened Back. 

"At the back the outer right-hand door as you go out was 
open and fastened back. The left-hand door I think was open. 

"The inner left hand door as you go out was closed. I tried 
to open it. I grapsed it with both hands and pulled. I 
could not open it. 

"I tried to help the children out. I tried to open the door 
again. Flames leaped out over my head. Then some men 
came and opened it. I saw Mr. Dorn and Mr, Hirter. I don't 
know who opened the door. 

"The inner left hand door was closed. Children were piling 
up behind it in the entry. 

"I don't think it was over two minutes after I tried to open 
the door till it was opened. Just as they opened the door some 
one grabbed me and shoved me out. 

"There were no children in the space between the outer and 



140 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

inner doors. They were piled on the stairs. It wasn't three 
minutes from the time the gong sounded until it was all over. 

"It wasn't a second until I had my door open. I was stand- 
ing right by it. My children were the first out of the east 
entrance. 

* "As I stood at the head of the basement stairs flames were 
coming up a foot from me, and while the children were coming 
out. 

"Some were frightened and fell and 1 picked them up. I 
heard no explosion. My children had been in school about a 
month. Their average age was six or seven years. I think 
they all got out. 

"I could tell by those at the rear of the line, who were the 
largest children. I didn't count them. ' It is possible some 
might have turned back. The were frightened because they 
could see the flames." 

Principal Moran's Story. 

Anna Moran ,the principal, living at 4905 Westrupp avenue, 
told the investigators that she had been principal of Lake 
View since the school was built six years ago. 

"Four rooms were added a year ago, making nine in use as 
schoolrooms," she continued. 

"As to fire drills, the teachers were told that the signal was 
three gongs, which side of the stairways to use, where to go 
outside, to go out in order and come back in order. 

"It must have been a month since we had a drill. The 
weather was too cold through February. I think we had had 
only one since January 1. Miss Rose's was the only class that 
had come in since then. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 141 

"At the tap of the bell.'' continued Miss ]\Ioran, "the chil- 
dren get right up out of their seats, go to the side of the room 
and march down and out. 

"The teachers are to see that they keep moving. They go 
with the children. The children do not go to the cloakrooms 
to get their wraps. Each grade has a particular stairway 
entrance. 

"Mr. Hirter is notified to open the doors. I have told him 
to get them open as quickly as he can. At drills we have never 
been blocked or had to hesitate a moment. 

"My room was on the second floor at the northeast corner. 
The first grades are out before I get down. One door is a 
spring door and would come back if we pushed it open. There 
is one of this sort at each entrance. 

"All of them open out, certainly. The schoolroom and class 
room doors also. I usually give the fire drill alarm. It can be 
rung from my room or ]\Iiss Irwin's room. There is no way 
of giving it from the basement. 

Did Not Give The Signal. 

'T realized more quickly than anybody else that this was 
not a fire drill, because I had not given the signal. 

"Flames and smoke were coming up the front stairs. I 
asked my children to go back to the fire escape in the library. 
I am afraid not many of them went. 

"They thought they were nearer safety on the first floor 
than to go back to the second floor with me to the fire escape. 
This couldn't have been more than a minute after the alarm 
was given. 

"I went back up. I met children coming down. I couldn't 
stop them. I went into the library with some. 



142 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"I smashed a window with a chair. The wind blew the 
door shut. I went back and looked into the hall. 

"It was dense with smoke. I couldn't see a child there. I 
went back to the window and down the fire escape. 

"I went around back. The doors were all open then. Men 
were there getting children out. Those doors swung outward. 

"Fire drills have been given in this way for three years or 
more. There has never been any variation in the program. 

Xew pupils are not instructed individually. We never had 
any trouble as to that. They get riglit up and go along out 
with the others. 

Children Won't Follow Teacher. 

"I lost a great many of my children, nearly all of them," 
concluded Miss Moran, tears filling her eyes. "I couldn't get 
them to follow me back to the second floor to the fire escape." 

Aliss Moran was then asked a few questions. 

"The janitor was always in the building when needed," she 
said. "We have no trouble with the heating apparatus. 

"There never was any smoke in the building. It was satis- 
factorily heated all the time except one day after vacation, 
when the third floor was not warm enough. 

"It was comfortable this morning; not overheated. The 
boiler was in the center of the building, 15 or 20 feet west 
from the place where the flames came up. 

Small Room Under Stairs. 

"Under the stairs there was a small room in which ink was 
kept, perhaps tools. I have never seen any rubbish there. 
Sometimes there was a stepladder. 

"This closet is north from the stairwav. The flames seemed 



I 

i 



i 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 143 

to come from the south side. Under that point might be the 
edge of this closet. 

I think the fire crept under the floor to the stairway opening 
and burst out when the opened doors admitted the draft. 

"I heard an explosion half an hour after we got out of the 
building. There was not a sound before that. 

"Mr. Hirter takes ashes out of the side door and piles them 
north of the building." 

Boy Tells His Story. 
The next witness was little Walter Skelly, a manly lad of 

six, who tried to tell just how things happened. He spoke up 
bravely, but became somewhat confused at times. 

"I live on Sackett street," he said. "I am in Miss Lynn's 
room. I heard the gong ring. Miss Lynn opened the door. 

"We ran out. I caught hold of the little kids so I wouldn't 
fall. We ran for the door. We went home then. We came 
down the back way. The door was open. The right-hand 
door was open. The left-hand door wasn't open. I was the 
first boy to get out. The second door was shut. I couldn't 
open it. 

"Five boys got out before me. I bumped a kid and he 
bumped the door and pushed it open. 

"Mr. Hirter opened the door. I was there when Mr. Hirter 
came. I waited there four minutes." 

Describes Panic Of Death. 

Katherine Gollmer, 4919 Westrupp avenue, teacher of the 
northwest room on the second floor, told her story : 

"My children were from nine to twelve years old. I had no 
Lizzie. There was Anna Widmar and Mary Schednick in my 
room and Elizabeth Sodoma. 



144 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"All were about eleven years old. I don't think they played 
together much. They were not chums especially. 

"At the alarm the children rushed up out of their seats. A 
boy opened the door. I went out with the children. I said, 
'Fire drill.' 

"I looked back and saw them all out. I told them to rush. 
I got down last. I saw the jam. 

"The outside door, the right-hand half of it, was only half 
open. I called and beckoned them to come back. 

"Miss Moran was there. I went with her and such children 
as would follow to the library and out on the fire escape. I 
went to the door as soon as I struck the ground. 

"I tried to open.it. I saw hands stretched out. I took hold 
of the hands and tried to pull the children out, but couldn't. 

"I tried to get the door open. A man was there, Mr. Hir- 
ter, I think. The door was fastened at the top. My children 
always went out the west door. 

"This morning the left hand door, going out, was closed. 

"My children were panic stricken when they saw the flames. 
They seemed to reach to the ceiling when we got there. 

"I told them to rush. I wanted them to go out quickly. I 
never told them to 'rush' before in a fire drill. 

"This is my second year in the building. We have had sev- 
eral fire drills this year. We have to go into the library to get 
to the fire escape. 

"The fire drills don't involve any use of the fire escapes." 

Lulu Rowley, teacher of No. 6 room, A third grade, telling 
her story for the second time, said that her room was at the 
southeast corner of the second floor. 

"At fire drills I always tell the children to get a. nartncr and 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 145 

not to rush," she said. "They follow the school' ahead, if 
there is any. 

"We usually go out the front door. Today the flames were 
coming up and we went to the west door. 

Fire Blocks the Stairs. 

"The fire was then blocking the stairs. I went down with 
the children. We couldn't get out the front way. Flames were 
coming up right between the banisters. 

"I didn't go back upstairs. The children were crowded in 
the back stairway. Miss Irwin and I went into Miss Fiske's 
room. 

"Some children followed us. We threw them out the win- 
dows and followed ourselves. 

"I picked up a boy with the skin torn from his face and 
hands. His face was all blood. He told me he couldn't see. 

"I carried him out of the way and came back. It couldn't 
have leen more than two and one-half minutes from the time 
the gong sounded till I was out of the building and back at the 
rear door and it was all over. 

"This is my fifth year in the building. We had at least one 
drill before this year. There was no change of instructions. 
The exits were always open. It was the janitor's duty to open 
them." 

Heroine-Teacher Stays. 

Laura Bodey, 978 Collamer street, said that she was a teach- 
er in the building, her room being the auditorium on the third 
floor: 

"My children are in the fifth A and B grades," she said. 
"This was my fifth week. I had had no fire drill in that time 
and no instructions. 



146 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Ihe children had had it and knew what to do, only when 
they saw the smoke and fire they called 'Fire!' 

"I stayed until every child was out of the windows and 
down the fire escape. I found a little boy with his hands and 
face hurt and took him out in front. 

"I went around to the west door. There was a wide space, 
as Wide as if the doors were open. 

"I didn't get the children in line. Some of mine were 
missing. They went down the back stairway." 

F. J. Dorn's Tale. 

Frank J. Dorn, member of the school board and father of one 
of the little victims, said that he reached the building shortly 
after the fire started. 

"I went to the west door," he said. "I first found a little 
girl lying 10 or 12 feet from the building, with her head bat- 
tered, her clothes burning. I carried her a little way and gave 
her to some women. I went back to the doors. Both were 
open. 

"The inner door on the north side w^as wired back to the 
radiator. The first thing I thought of was to tear out the mid- 
dle partition ; that is, besides the inner vestibule doors, four or 
five feet back from the outer doors. 

"The partition crosses parallel with the outside walls. Dou- 
ble doors were hung in it with side panels of glass. The en- 
trance was about five feet wide. The partitions were about 18 
to 24 inches wide. 

"On my way to the fire I met my little girl, who told me to 
hurry up and save 'little sister.' She always called her 'little 
sister.' She said she was burning up. I helped pull out six or 
se\ en children. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 147 

"Just imagine 75 children in front of you, calling you by 
name and stretching out their hands and begging you to save 
them ! With their hair on fire and their clothes burning ! 

"I helped to pull out Miss Lynn. When I got there I didn't 
notice any children outside." 

R. W. Galloway, living near the school, said : 

"I got there about 9:25 a. m. I was starting for work when 
I saw the fire, and threw my grip back into the store and called 
to Mr. Hausrath and went to the fire. 

'T helped get them out, what I could, at the back door, the 
west door. 

"One door was about half closed and half open. The crowd 
was against it outside as much as inside. 

"Mr. Hausrath and I tried to break down the railing. We 
smashed the glass, but couldn't get the partition out. 

Saves Many Children. 

"Finally we took the children as they came over the top of 
the pile. A teacher, a lady, anyway, was the first to call for 
help. 

"Mr. Schaeffer, a tailor down by the Lake Shore, got hold of 
his boy's hand. I should call the door about half way open. 

"The crowd of children was back of the partition. I couldn't 
say how wide the partition was. I was not at the east doors 
at all. 

"Hirter was there trying to get the children out, the same 
as the rest of us. We were pulling children off the top. 

"Those who were strong enough were climbing over the top. 
Some fell back. Most of them were underneath and we 
■couldn't move them." 

Daniel H. Farnam, 3892 West 36th street, Cleveland, said : 



148 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"I am a draughtsman for Searles, Hirsh & Gavin, architects. 
I had charge of the drawings for the addition to the school 
building. I am acquainted with the plans for the addition es- 
pecially. We constructed the west four rooms. 

"The width of the vestibule is 10 feet eight inches. The 
stairs going up are five feet eight inches wide. The finish of 
the stairs is yellow pine. 

"The vestibule is about five feet deep from the inner to the 
outer doors. The doorways were five feet wide, outer and 
inner. All four doors swung out, 

"The doors were hung in a w^ooden partition with glass 
panels at the sides. The partitions are less than 23/2 feet wide 
at each side — little more than two feet. Georgia yellow pine 
is a usual material for a building of that grade. I would not 
say that it is more than usually inflammable. 

Four Rooms in Basement. 

"Th"ere were four rooms in the basement, corresponding with 
the rooms above, and a long hall. The heating plant was in 
the center of the octagonal space. The closet mentioned was 
closed with a ceiled partition. 

"The octagonal space had a plastered ceiling. It was fenced 
off with a slat fence of pine. A pit 26 or 28 inches deep was 
inside the fence. You had to step down into it to get to the 
boilers. 

"I have worked more or less on the plans for 10 or 12 school- 
houses. 

"This building would stand no comparison whatever with a 
fireproof school like the Shaw Building in East Cleveland, 
but compares with the class of schools built in small towns'. 

"It was approved construction for such school buildings." 



CHAPTER XIV. 
CHILDREN'S SACRIFICES. 

PATHETIC SCENES ARE ENACTED IN ALL HOMES 
IN THE VILLAGE. 

Collinwood mourned for her children that are not, even 
while the official investigation of the fire was in progress. Up 
and down the principal street, Collamer avenue, on either 
side of the burned Lakeview school, there was hardly a home 
where some little loved one was not missing. 

It was the same on the side streets. Everywhere within a 
radius of half a mile was misery, hopelessness and the gloom 
of death. 

Over the home of Mrs. Paul Sprung, two doors east of the 
school, the silence of utter desolation had settled. Everything 
was as it had been when little Alvin, 7, the only boy, went 
clumping out in the morning after his goodbye kiss. 

You'll Be Late. 

In the living room stood his little table piled high with pic- 
ture books. Jack and the Bean Stalk lay just as he left it 
when warned — "You'll be late for school." 

The tiny chair pushed back and a little sidewise told a mute 
story of how the little fellow had slid lingeringly out. 

Through the open back door of the dining room his black- 
board peered. A house with the many-windowed front and 
roof going to a wobbly point, which every mother knows, 
stood out white from the vigorous strokes of his baby hands. 

The mother came in like an appariiton. Her face was blood- 



150 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

less. Great dark shadows lay under her eyes. Her hands hung 
listless. There was no sign of life, but her noiseless glide. 

"My boy Alvin ; yes, he's dead," she said monotonously. 
Then her eyes fell on the little table and chair. 

"Oh, you can't think how it was," she burst out. 

"It was such a little time that he'd been gone. I heard the 
commotion. I ran to the door and saw them piled high on each 
other; screaming, struggling — I caught their hands. I pulled 
at them. But I couldn't do anything — I — I couldn't." 

The dry sobs ceased. The slender hands hung lifeless again. 

"I'm just waiting for my boy to be brought home," she mur- 
mured, turning away with the dullness of despair. 

Three Little Ones Gone. 

At the home of James D. Turner, 436 CoUamer avenue, a few 
houses west of the school, three little boys went down to death 
in that awful heap of charred bodies. James 14, Norman 9, and 
Maxwell 6 — all were lost. 

Mjs Turner sat in a low chair. Her head was sunk on her 
bosom. She rocked moaning back and forth — back and forth. 

"We fear for her," said the father chokingly. "She has not 
been well ; and she just can't give them up. She insists that 
our Jim is not dead. 

"Jim was such a gritty lad." 

Turner's lips trembled, but loving pride was in the tone. 
"Tlie children say he got out by breaking a window, but went 
back in again to get his brothers. No one saw him come out." 

Oh. the bravery of those little heroes! 

Could anything be finer than the way they turned back into 
the flames and smoke to hunt for little brothers and sisters ! 

Edna Hebler, 14, 4908 Westropp avenue, also lost her life 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 151 

in the same way. She went safely down the fire escape with 
other children, and started away, when the thought of her 
little 6-year-old sister Melba's danger drove her back. 

Up the fire escape she climbed, and made her way down 
inside to the first floor to die, while the little sister was safely 
at home. 

Walter Hirter, 10, son of the janitor, was another little hero. 

He was one of the first children to escape. He started to 
run across the street to his home when, "Ida, Ida," he called. 
Back he rushed to save his little 8-year-old sister, only to 
fall with her. 

Two White-Faced Girls. 

At 432 Collamer avenue, in the Gordon home, two white- 
faced little girls clung to their sobbing mother, trying to com- 
fort her for the sister Ruth they couldn't save. 

Annie, 10, with the bravery of childhood, was the spokes- 
man. She told of her own remarkable escape barely touching 
on her heroism. 

'T was on the third floor," she said. 'T ran down to the 
first and saw the door jammed. 

"Then I ran up to the second to the library. The fire es- 
cape runs past that. I pounded on the window. It wouldn't 
open, so I ran to the first again. 

"A window in the first grade room was open. I ran and 
called to other children to come. I got some to, and we jump- 
ed out." 

Mrs. Gordon cuddled her little ones close. 

"Oh, my three girlies. I was so proud of them," she cried, 
"and I'll never hold mv Ruthie agfain." 



152 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

A little farther up the street, at No. 521, a man in his shop 
clothes paced wildly up and down. 

"Annie and Sofie, Annie and Sofie," he said over and over 
again. 

It was Joe Widmar, who had lost two of his big brood of 
babies. 

"Oh God, I couldn't get there in time," he groaned. "What 
it the use of my strong arms ! They didn't save my girls. I 
ran ; I rode. I don't know how I got there — and saw only 
bones." 

There were no signs of living in those stricken homes. Food 
was uncooked. Fires went out. People sat helpless, speech- 
less. Even the children seemed afraid to talk. 

A Pall Over Every House. 

It was awful. A pall hung over every house. ^Mothers with 
minds strained to the snapping point ran madly about. 

It was feared that Mrs. Salvatore Caranova, 5314 Stone 
avenue, whose only daughter, ]\Iargarite, was among the lost 
would lose her mind. 

The frantic woman tore her hair ; she beat her breasts. Her 
shrieks could be heard a block away. 

But what a blessing the younger babies were. Their help- 
less cries were all that saved many a mother's reason. Their 
soft snuggling in the hungry arms brought the merciful tears. 

At the Schubert home, 5411 Lake street, Max Schubert, the 
father, sat bowed and broken, hot tears dropping on his big 
hands. His wife, with misery-drawn face, held her baby close. 

They had lost their first born, Verna, 12, for whom they had 
hoped and planned and lived. 

"I couldn't stand it but for the babv," moaned the mother, as 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 153 

she snuggled her cold face beside the tiny warm one. "My 
sister-in-law, Mrs. Potter, saw Verna on that pile of children 
at the door — saw her burn and couldn't get her out." 

Henry Ellis, 4613 Westropp avenue, was one of the first to 
reach the scene. 

"The children were corded up, like wood," he said. "The 
little ones, mostly girls, were patient, and only held out their 
arms to us in a plea for us to save them. 

"God knows we tried, but they were wedged in there so that 
a giant could not have moved them. 

"We lifted off those at the top, one after another, until the 
fire came and killed them as we worked. 

"I saw one little girl take the shawl which protected her 
own head for a moment, and wrap it about a littler boy, whom 
she held close to her and comforted as they died. They were 
in behind, and we could not reach them." 

Mrs. A. A. Hunter, wife of the secretary of the Western Re- 
serve Woolen Company, ran to the fire to search for her boy. 

"I think more of the children should have been saved," she 
said. "The school rooms did not burn until after the halls 
were afire, but the firemen kept pouring water on the front 
of the building. If they had sprinkled it on the children many 
of them might not have died." 

Smaller Children Beneath. 

Max Schubert worked at the heap of babes, in which his own 
little girl, Verna, was being burned to death. 

"The inner doors were open," he said. "The smaller chil- 
dren were underneath. Emil Pahner and I took hold of one 
little chap, and pulled with all our strength, but we could not 
move him. 



154 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Then came the jet of flame, which withered them before oui 
eyes, and horror stricken, we were driven back from that heap 
of little ones." 

George Getzein, construction superintendent of the Cuya- 
hoga Telephone Company, set his whole force of linemen to 
work at the task of rescue. 

"Two of them lifted me up to a window, which I broke in, 
on the north side," he said. 

"It opened into a schoolroom, but there were no children 
there. They were gathered on the stairs, and the fire was in 
the center of the building. 

"It spread so rapidly that we were driven back by the heat 
even as I was preparing to jump inside. 

"We then tried to force the front door, which opened in- 
ward. I think. We failed, until after the children within were 
dead." 

Caught in a Pen. 

"One-half of the inner double doors were closed," said Pa- 
trolman Wohl of the Collinwood department. "It was the 
narrowness of the corridor that caught them as in a pen." 

The janitor, Fred Hirter, 477 Collamer street, lost three chil- 
dren, Walter, fifteen; Helena, thirteen, and Edith, eight. 

"A little girl ran to me," he said, "and told me the place 
was burning. Her hair was afire. I was inside the building 
when it happened." 

It was said that the child who notified him was Helena, his 
own daughter. 

The janitor was compelled to keep his doors locked Wed- 
nesday to avoid attacks from crazed mothers. 

Of the nine teachers at. the North Collinwood school, only 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 155 

two, Miss Katherine Weiler and Miss Grace Fiske, went down 
to death with the little ones intrusted to their care, said Doro- 
thy Dale. 

Both fought to turn the frightened children from that death 
pit at the rear door, till the flames burned the strength from 
their arms. 

Both begged and entreated and comforted till the choking 
fumes stilled their voices. 

Both fell charred and almost fleshless trying to save their 
little flocks. And escape was in a jump from the windows, 
20 feet away. 

The bones of a woman believed to be Miss Weiler were 
found a few hours later. They were locked in' the tangle of 
little legs and arms that she had tried so hard to set free. 

Dying Amid Corpses. 

Miss Fiske was not quite dead when found. She had tried 
to protect the clinging children with her clothing. The forms 
of two little ones were wrapped in her skirts.. She died at 
noon at the Glenville hospital. 

Miss Weiler taught a second grade on the second floor. 
There were 39 7-year-old babies in her room. 

At the sound of the gong she started the line of little figures 
down the back stairs. The smoke was already rising around 
them. 

As she saw the jam at the door, she tried to call them back. 

Children who escaped say her voice rose above the screams 
and crackling flames. 

But the children were so tiny they saw but one thing, the 
door that habit told them meant air and freedom. She pulled 
at them. She tossed them back. 



156 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

But it was fruitless. They hurled themselves forward to be 
borne down by that struggling mass in the hall below. And 
she went down with them. 

]\Iiss Fiske also taught a second grade. She turned her 44 
pupils to the back stairw^ay because the little first graders 
were going out so slowly at the front. 

Max Schubert, of gigantic stature, saw her at the door. 

"She was jammed so tight against it she couldn't move," he 
said. "She was half in and half out. I tried to pull her out. 
I tried to pull children out, but they were wedged so tightly, 
I couldn't." 

Aliss Weiler w^as the daughter of Rev. Gustav N. Weiler, 
pastor of the German Methodist church Pittsburg. She lived 
at the home of F. W. Lindow, 2217 E. 81st street. 

Mis Fiske lived on Orvillc avenue, N. E. 

Fireman Makes Exciting Race. 

Fireman John O'Brien of No. I's house, Cleveland, made the 
most exciting trip to the Collinwood fire. 

Tlie first message was that the stairways of the school had 
been burned and that scores of children were imprisoned in 
the third floor of the burning building. 

A newspaper telephoned to fire headquarters and for an au- 
tomobile. Capt. Ney at headquarters answered. 

"Will the chief let the newspaper send a fire net and a fire- 
man out to that fire in an automobile?" 

The chief would. 

Meantime an automobile dashed up to No. I's house. It was 
a limousine machine — one of the inclosed affairs. 

A fire net is a big circle of padded, hammock-like mesh fas- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 157 

tened to a big" jointed iron frame. To put this ungainly thing 
in a closed automobile was impossible, but the fireman piled it 
up on top and John O'Brien, a six-footer, scrambled up and 
sat on the wabbling thing. 

The roof of the auto squeaked and groaned, but the fireman 
only called down to the line: "Give 'er hell. It's worth 
smashing the whole outfit to save one kid's life." 

Then the auto started for Collinwood. Over good pave- 
ments, bad ones and none at all, it dashed. O'Brien clung to 
the top of the machine and to his ungainly lifenet, the auto 
swayed and cracked. 

And arrived to late. 

But the willingness to do and dare was there, and from No. 
I's house, on St. Clair avenue near East Ninth street, to the 
place of the fire, including a sea of mud in Collinwood's streets, 
the run was made in a few seconds under 19 minutes. 

Gives Life To Save Others From Awful Death. 

Among the little heroes of the awful day was James Turner, 
fourteen, 436 Collamer avenue, whose charred body later 
rested in Shepherd's morgue beside his two brothers, Norman, 
eight, and Max, six, for whom he gave up his life in a vain 
eft'ort to save them. James had jumped from a window and 
was safe, when suddenly he remembered his two little brothers 
imprisoned like rats in the burning building. Back through 
a window he climbed. His father, J. T. Turner, identified all 
his dead. 

The greatest havoc was wrought among the children of 
Lake Shore shops and round house employes, and employes 



158 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

of the Browning Engineering Company. Several children of 
brakemen and firemen were killed. A message sent to Fred 
W. Hook, passenger brakeman, at Buflfalo apprised him of the 
death of his boy, Wilfred, eight. Most of the bereaved fam- 
ilies were foreigners, but several children of well-to-do fam- 
ilies were among the dead. 

Death the Great Leveler. 

In the presence of the great leveler Death, rich and poor 
were equal. Women in furs sobbed upon the shoulders of 
lowly foreigners in calico. J\Ien of far different strata of so- 
ciety grasped each other's hands and shed tears for each other. 

In the gloomy storehouse death, grim, unyielding, unspeak- 
ing. ruled supreme, yet it brought in its train, charity, love 
and richest flowering of human kindness. In the world with- 
out, birds sang and sun shone, and the thousand noises of city 
life proclaimed the relentless fact that the catastrophe which 
brought desolation to hundreds of homes had left the great 
world untouched. They had no dead to identify. 

Every Ambulance Busy. 

Everv ambulance in the East End answered the general 
ambulance alarm following the discovery of the fire. Twenty 
wagons and crews were engaged from 9:40 o'clock in the 
morning until after 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Even at 8 
o'clock several crews had not returned to the barns. Drivers 
and attendants were exhausted physically by the. actual ex- 
ertion of carrying away the dead and dying. 

Ambulance men steeped in the horrors of accidents were 
horrified at the spectacles they were compelled to witness. 
Never in their lives had they seen such scenes as those of the 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 159 

fire. Hogan's, Shepherd's, Mapes', Ziehm's, Abel's, Monreal's 
and Jenning's and Hazenpflug's wagons responded to the call. 
All of them sent every wagon available. Hogan sent three 
ambulances from his East End office, John and St. Clair 
street. They left the barn at 9:30 o'clock. 

The first load was seven bodies. These were taken to the 
Hogan morgue. Instructions were received, however, to take 
the bodies to the Lake Shore shops. After that all bodies were 
taken to the shops. One dead girl was taken to her home. 
Forty-eight bodies were carried during the day. At 8 o'clock 
in the evening two wagons were still busy taking the identified 
dead to their homes. 

Mapes sent two wagons, working late into the night. All 
bodies were taken to the Lake Shore. Six ambulances were 
sent out by R. G. Shepherd, whose morgue is near the school. 
On account of its location this morgue was used for the dead. 
At 8 o'clock Shepherd had hauled forty-five bodies and more 
were constantly being received. 

Ziehm's three wagons hauled thirty-eight, all to the Lake 
Shore. Abel had three wagons out, hauling thirty-two. Two 
wagons from Monreal's hauled forty-three bodies. One wagon 
was out all night. Jennings and Hasenpflug had one wagon 
out, carrying fifteen bodies. The driver of this wagon made 
eleven trips. 

Like Great Slaughter House. 

"Never in all my life have I witnessed such horrible sights,'' 
said R. G. Shepherd, an ambulance man. "I have seen the 
effects of some terrible affairs, but this one was inexpressibly 
horrible. We soon found that it was of but little use to try 
to save any lives. All were dead by the time we could get to 



160 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 



them. It was like a great slaughter house — that school. Only- 
it was an abattoir made more terrible by the fire which burned 
and charred each body." 

The reports of the ambulance men were but partially com- 
piled. So many bodies were handled that the drivers them- 
selves hardly knew how many bodies they carried. Early 
in the evening calls began arriving at the dififerent stations 
asking that wagons be sent again to the Lake Shore ware- 
house. Parents of the identified were beginning to take home 
the remains of their loved ones. All night this was kept up. 










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CHAPTER XV. 

MOTHERS WAIL FOR BABIES. 

WEEPING TEACHERS VISIT PARENTS IN AN 
EFFORT TO COMFORT. 

Their eyes red from crying, tears still running down their 
cheeks, the teachers that escaped the holocaust visited the 
homes of all their pupils. 

Having no official list with the addresses, they stopped at 
every house within a mile of the ruins. 

"Are any of your children missing?" was the first question 
the teachers asked. 

Tear-stained eyes of mothers answered affirmatively in 
nearly every house. Few homes there were near the school 
that had not a missing one. In some instances two, and even 
three, were gone. 

Moaning and loud crying often told the young women be- 
_fore they knocked at the door that their list of fatalities was 
to be augmented. 

Calling for Her Babies. 

"My babies! my babies! Why did you let them burn? 
Won't I ever see my little boy again?" the heart-broken 
mother would cry. 

Miss Lulu Rowley, teacher of the third grade — more than 
half of the children of her room perished — answered all the 
questions put to her by the parents as best she could. Fre- 
quently she broke down. Then she would wring her hands 
and say : 

"If they had only done as I said. But the dear little things 



178 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

saw daylight through the smoke at the open door in the rear. 
Then they rushed into the mass jammed in the doorway. 
Your child probably was with them." 

Parents in a Rage. 

Some of the parents whose children lay charred in the im- 
provised morgue at the Lake Shore yards, spoke kindly to the 
teachers, but many flew into a rage. 

"Never again will I let my boy go to school." fairly shouted 
a foreigner, who had lost his little girl. 

"Why didn't you bring my little girls with you?" cried Mrs. 
Bertha Robinson to Miss Laura Bodey, the fifth grade teacher. 
The Robinson girls, Fern 12, and Waunetta 7, were the only 
colored children in the school. Both were caught in the 
doomed building. 

Crazed with grief over her loss, ]\lrs. Robinson refused to be 
comforted by the teacher. Her condition was for a time se- 
rious. 

"I'm So Glad," Said Pet. 

One little girl, Mary Oblak, 11. ran through the mire, ankle 
deep in Spruce street, to embrace Miss Rowley. 

"Fm so glad you threw me out the window. I only hurt my 
wrist," she said. 

Mary was in Katherine W'eiler's room. When she ran to 
the back door she found it clogged with shrieking children 
piled six high. 

"Come with me," called Miss Rowley. 

Mary ran into one of the rooms on the first floor, and Miss 
Rowley threw her through the window. 

Marv's brother was killed. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 179 

At every corner, children ran up to the teachers and told of 
their escapes. They gave the names of their unfortunate play- 
mates. In this way the teachers found out about the pupils. 

Illness Saves Girl. 

The mother of Bertha Jepson, 7, told about her little girl. 
She kept her home from school because she was sick. 

"I'm so glad she didn't go to school, because she would have 
been killed, for she isn't as strong as her comrades." 

It was late in the night before the teachers finished their 
visits. Miss Rowley was faint with exhaustion. Most of the 
children on her list were lost. The strain was more than she 
could stand — her inquiries for the safety of those in her room 
usually brought a negative shake of the head. 

"If only I could have thrown some more out of the win- 
dows," she cried, "but they all ran away from me to the stam- 
pede at the back door." 

Says Stairs Collapsed. 

Glenn Barber, 10, one of the survivors of the Collinwood 
school fire who was taken to Glenville hospital, died there a few 
hours later. 

If the story the boy told the nurses is accurate, not only 
were the front doors of the school locked, but the rear stairs 
collapsed while the little children were trying to escape by the 
back door. 

"When the fire alarm sounded," the child said. "I ran down 
the front stairs. I tried the front doors and found them locked. 
I ran back upstairs to my room on the second floor. By that 
time the childen were pouring out into the halls. 

"I told them the front doors were locked, but they didn't 



180 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

pay any attention to me. As they rushed by me to the stairs, 
I clung to the door jamb as they rushed past, to keep from 
being swept downstairs. 

"They ran down the front stairs and, finding the doors 
locked, came back. Then the upper halls filled with smoke and 
it got so dark we could hardly see. Suddenly there was a 
bright light at the front door. It was the flames. 

"All the children then rushed down the back stairs. They 
were so crowded at the rear door they couldn't move, while 
others from behind pressed them. 

"Then the back stairs collapsed and all the children on them 
fell in a heap in the ruins. 

"I came upstairs again and jumped out of a second-story 
window." 

Frank J. Dorn was a happy man when he left his home on 
Park avenue, Wednesday morning, for Gretchen, age 10, and 
Katherine, age 7, two beautiful little daughters, were growing 
to womanhood amid pleasantest surroundings ; and this man's 
whole heart was centered in them. 

A block away from home and he was in sight of the Collin- 
wood schoolhouse. He noticed a wreath of smoke blurring the 
sky, but he did not regard it closely. 

At the same moment he noticed his child Katherine, dressed 
only in her plain white skirt, running toward him frantically. 

"Papa, papa!" she screamed, and her brown eyes were alight 
with terror. 

"The school — the school, papa! It's on fire. And Gretchen" 
— her breath came in gasps, for she had rushed toward home. 
— "Gretchen is in there and can't get out!" 

One leap and little Katherine was left behind to stare at 
her father as he ran to the school. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 181 

Yes, Gretchen was in there — dead. 

He worked with two or three others with Trojan might. 
He gripped Miss Lynn, one of the lower grade teachers. She 
was in the front of the ranks of the pinioned. He freed her 
from the human fastening and she lurched forward from the 
hot breath of flames to freedom. 

Sharp tongues were licking about the entrance. Smoke 
gushed forth stifling the rescuers. A hot flame now seared the 
heads of the little ones. As the sm^oke arose the rescuers saw 
the charred faces. 

"I couldn't stand it any longer,' said Dorn. 

Soon his courage returned. There was no hope of saving 
any more children. Plans for taking care of the dead came 
next. And an hour later this man, whose oldest child wass 
dead in that fire, was among the most energetic workers at the 
Lake Shore shops morgue. And while he worked with the 
dead he recognized his child. 

"Their Eyes ! Their Eyes !" 

"Their eyes — that's what I see all the time ; that's what I 
never can forget. I see them all the time looking up at me 
as they did from that jam of children in the doorway. And 
the horrible part of it is that, although we were there — big 
strong men — we could do nothing to answer the appeal in 
those eyes." 

Wallace Upton, the speaker, was a "big, strong man" in 
every sense of the word. He weighs more than 200 and has 
the shoulders of a Hercules. He was one of the first to reach 
the fire. He is credited with saving 18 children . 

\ 



CHAPTER XVI. 

COURAGE OF WOMEN. 

TEACHERS PRAY AMID FLAMES AS THEIR LITTLE 
CHARGES PERISH. 

Mrs. Gordon, mother of three children, two of whom es- 
caped from the building, tells of the things she saw when she 
ran to the school to save her little ones. 

"When 1 got there." she said, "I saw two of my children 
leap from a second-story window. Some one caught them 
and they were safe. 

"But when I looked at the window I saw my littlest girl 
standing there, holding out her hands. The flames were all 
around her. A minute later she was gone. It was a terrible 
sight for me. I had to stand there helpless and see my baby 
die. 

"I could see through the windows. I saw two teachers 
standing in the middle of a room with children crowded around 
them. I think they must have been praying. I could almost 
sec the look of agony on their faces. A moment later they 
disappeared from view." 

\\'omcn proved their courage at the fire. Mrs. Joseph Jones 
who lives opposite the school house, was among the first there. 
She stood and caught many children as they leaped from the 
windows. 

After frantically striving to release his eight-year-old son 
George, from the tangled heap of smothering children at the 
rear door of the Collinwood school, W. C. SchaefFer of Grove- 
land, Lake Shore boulevard, was forced by fire and humanity 
to release his hold and to see the despairing look of the boy 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 183 

as the flames brought death to him and to scores of other 
children. 

Glad, eager hands and a smile that said, "It's all right now — 
papa's here," greeted the heart-sick father as he stepped into 
the fiery entrance. Quickly he seized them, but pulling as 
hard as he could, he could not bring the lad to safety, for he 
stood more than waist-deep among the prostrate bodies of 
schoolmates and could not budge an inch. In despair, the 
father sought to pull out other children in front of George, 
and their cries and beseeching eyes gave him the strength of 
ten men. Not one could be moved, however. 

His Hands Burned. 

Then he reached to smother the flaming hair of his son 
burning his own hands and cheeks. Again he put out the fire 
in the lad's hair. Then hope fled with a last vain pull. George 
sank down with a look his father will always see, and Mr. 
Schaefl'er was forced to get out of the building. 

The thought of climbing up on the bodies of somebody's 
children, even if the inhuman act would help to save George, 
never entered Air. Schaeffer's mind. He had done the best 
he could. Nothing was left to do, but to return home to his 
agonized wife. 

A younger son — Charles, aged six — escaped from the burn- 
ing building. He came running home, crying with terror, and 
said that the school was on fire and that George was in it 

"I rushed to the school, and was in time to find my little bo> 
alive," said SchaeiTer, "and if anyone had been there to help, 
we could have saved many of the children. Oh ; to think that I 
held George's hands, and I couldn't pull him out! W'hy, twice 
I put out the fire on his head. And I couldn't move him! 



184 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"I tried to get other children out of the way, but I couldn't 
move them, either. George was standing back behind a lot of 
them, and I had to stretch to reach him. He was wedged in 
there so tight that he couldn't move at all, though I nearly 
pulled his arms oflf. No one was there to help. Everybody 
seamed to be in front — doing nothing but gazing at the fire. 
It was awful ! 

"The fire engine had not arrived when I got there, and you 
can judge how long it must have been from the time when the 
first started, when I tell you that little Buddie ran all the way 
home to tell about it, and that I reached there in time to save 
many of those children. Oh, if there had been anybod}' to 
help." 

Schaeffer spoke with forced composure until he told of 
smothering flames which licked at his little boy's head. Then 
his voice trembled. His wife was completely prostrated by 
the shock, but under a physician's care she soon improved. 
She was cared for in a neighbor's home until supper time. 

Identified by a Ring. 

The body of little George was identitied Wednesday after- 
noon by a rmg he wore, and it was removed to an undertaker's 
rooms. 

Neighbors at the Groveland club grounds, east of the White 
City, were ill from their concern for the sorrowing Schaelfer 
family. Miss Teal met Schaeffer as he was returning from 
the school. 

"The look on that man's face is burned into my memory 
so that I never can forget it," she said. "It was the most ter- 
rible expression I ever saw. I can't describe it, but I can sec 
it now. Think of the experience!" 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 185 

Everyone agreed that no incident of the fire was more tragic 
than the death of George Schaeffer before the eyes of his 
father, who had tried in vain to save him. 

Little Girl First To Escape. 

The first person to get out of the school building was a 
tiny bit of a girl. Her name is Dena Carlson. Dena's sister, 
Nellie, is dead. 

Weeping, the eight-year-old girl told the story of her es- 
cape late Wednesday. 

"I heard the bell ring. It sounded strange to me — not like 
it always sounded. I ran with all my might for the back 
door. Other little girls and boys were there, but I got out 
first. Oh, I was out in the air. It was good to breathe. 

"Then I thought of my sister Nellie. I tried to go back to 
save her, but I could not. Then I cried out 'Nellie ! Nellie !' I 
just listened there outside to hear her say 'yes, Dena,' but she 
didn't. 

"Then I fell to the ground and cried. I knew Nellie was 
dead. I wish I had died with her, my little sister playmate, 
but I can't die when I want to — we die when we don't want 
to, don't we mamma?" asked Dena of her weeping parent as 
she finished her sad story. 

Picture on the Wall. 

Samuel M. Carlson and his wife, with little Dena between 
them, sat in their home at 4907 Fulton street. Collinwood, 
Wednesday night. The three were crying. Friends could not 
comfort them. On the wall was a picture of Nellie. 

"Oh, I could not part wtih it for even a minute," sobbed 
Mrs. Carlson. "Do not ask me, please, sir. 



186 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"There is a picture of Xellie when she was three years old. 
Take that — that will do, but I must look at my own Nellie all 
night long — till morning." 

A wreath tied with white ribbon mutely told of the grief 
in the household of Peter Schmitt. Hope had lingered until 
6 o'clock that Mildred Schmitt. ten, who had escaped from the 
building by jumping from the second-story window, might re- 
cover from the serious burns she received, but she died at 
the Glenville hospital. 

Perish in the Fire. 

Another member of the family, Emma Henicka, twelve, the 
daughter of a sister of Schmitt, perished in the fire, and her 
death was regretted almost as much as the death of the idol- 
ized daughter, and two deaths in the family of Mrs. Lang, a 
sister of S-chmitt's also, added to the sorrow. 

Neighbors spoke of little Alildred as the apple of her father's 
eye. 

"If ever a child was idolized by her parents," said a sympa- 
thizing friend, "that child was Mildred Schmitt,. Why, they 
would not even let her go to school alone. She was a beautiful 
little girl, and everybody who knew her loved her." 

Before the fire had made much headway, the father was at 
the school. He was just on the point of leaving for his busi- 
ness downtown when he learned about the fire. He said: 

■'When I reached the school I learned that Mildred had 
jumped out of a window% I found her at a house across the 
street, where a doctor was dressing her burns, and I had her 
removed at once to the hospital. They told mc there was a 
chance to save her life, but she was too badly burned." 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 187 

Peter Schmitt lived opposite the White City, and he had a 
saloon at 705 Superior avenue. 

The place of honor in the house was g^iven to a white-draped 
bier upon which lay the body of the child who was her father's 
joy. Here the family tearfully led neighbors who dropped in 
to ofifer condolences, and standing there they mournfully re- 
cited incidents of Mildred's childhood. 

"When she was five years old," said the broken-hearted 
father, "she took first prize of all the girls in Cleveland fot 
her beautiful eyes." 

With the Schmitts was Mrs. Lang, who lost a daughter, 
Lizzie, aged fourteen, and a sister's son, who was loved as 
though he were her very own, Peter Henicka, a lad of nine 
or ten, "Pete," as everyone called him, carried newspapers to 
the people in the neighborhood, and regrets at his death were 
heard in many homes. 

Aid the Family. 

"Pete" and his sister put their shoulders to the wheel when 
the father was out of work. Mrs. Lang baked bread, whicli 
the children sold to families in East Cleveland. Recently 
there was scarlet fever in the family, and the children had just 
begun to go to school again. Their death came as a sad blow 
to their parents. 

Officials Aid. 

On every hand the Lake Shore Railroad officials and their 
employees were commended for the assistance they rendered 
the community. From the time the fire started until the bodies 
were removed from the temporary morgue in the company's 
warehouse, the railroad officials did everything possible to alle- 
viate sufiferins: and to aid the authorities. 



188 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Soon after the fire was discovered, M. D. Franey, superin- 
tendent of shops, ordered the company's shop fire department 
to the scene. Sixty men with hose and axes responded to the 
call and although they were unable to save the children be- 
cause of the headway the flames had gained and the panic at 
the doorway they performed heroic work later in removing 
the bodies from the heated ruins. 

Though L. F. Parish, superintendent of motive power, and 
Mr, Franey, the general storekeeper's warehouse was thrown 
open for use is a temporary morgue. Lake Shore employees 
were pressed into service to take charge of the crowds of peo- 
ple crowding the morgue. Work in all of the shops was sus- 
pended. The company's surgeon. Dr. \\'. H. \\'illiams, was 
active in assisting Deputy Coroner Harry McNeil in taking 
charge of the numbering and tagging of the bodies. 

Tells of Horrifying Sight. 

The scenes of horror at the west side of the buildins: when 
the children, wedged in the doorway, screamed and begged 
miserably to be saved, stamped itself indelibly upon the mem- 
ories of those first to reach the building. Henry Sigler was 
one of the men who tried to pull the children from the door. 

"1 was about two blocks from the building when the fire 
broke out," he said, "I was talking to i\Irs. Walter Kelly, 
When we saw the flames burst from the front door we both 
started on the run for the schoolhouse, Mrs, Kelly, who had 
two boys in the building, outstripped me. Her children were 
burned to death. When I got up to the building I saw a little 
girl lying under one of the windows. T turned her over and 
saw that her face was all crushed in, I thought she was dead, 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 189 

so I paid no further attention to her, but went on to where 
the children were screaming for help from the doors. 

"What I saw then I never will forget. I could see nothing 
but faces with arms outstretched in front. So closely were 
the faces packed together that I could recognize none of them. 
I think I did know one little girl, but I will not mention her 
name, for I know her family well, and though I tried to drag 
her out I was unable to do so. I reached for the first pair of 
arms I could get and pulled with all my might. I might as 
well have been pulling on an iron ring set in concrete. An- 
other man helped me, but the two of us could do nothing. 
One could never believe bodies could be packed so closely to- 
gether if he hadn't seen it. I saw arms pulled from their 
sockets and one body was literally pulled in two. It was my 
idea that if we could get one body out even if we had to kill 
the child in doing so, the others would come easily. I said 
as much to another man and we tried it. But we were not 
strong enough to get out a single one." 

Sigler's grandchild, Mabel Sigler, aged ten, of No. 5012 Ar- 
cade street, was a victim of the fire. 

Dragged from Human Heap. 

In the face of the furious fiames enveloping the children 
packed into the doorway of the school Mrs. Julius Dietrich, 
No. 5318 Storer avenue, dragged her daughter, Gertrude, 
from the mass and snatched her out of the school entrance. 
In effecting the rescue Mrs. Dietrich was badly burned about 
the arms, and her little davighter, too, was seriously burned. 

The little girl was on the top of the crowd of struggling 
children and was near the edgre of the inner vestibule door. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

BURRYING THE DEAD. 

HUNDREDS OF CITIZENS WEEP AS WHITE 
HEARSES PASS. 

Hundreds of Collinwood citizens stood with bared heads, 
bowed with grief over the graves of little children being low- 
ered into the ground Friday — the little victims of the terrible 
school disaster. 

Hundreds of others watched and mourned over little white 
biers where rested the charred remains of what three days 
before had been the life and joy of the home. Parents, relatives 
and neighbors gathered together at the sides of these coffins 
to mourn for the lost little ones. 

All Collinwood was in mourning, for the burial of the vil- 
lage's dead had begun. Scarcely a home that had not felt the 
terrible blow either directly or indirectly. If it was not their 
own children it was those of a dear" neighbor or a sister or a 
brother. Those whose children were saved mourned none the 
less for the relatives and friends that were dead while clasping 
their own dear ones to their hearts and giving thanks that 
they were still alive. 

The village seemed to be one vast procession of hearses 
and carriages. White hearse after white hearse passed down 
the various village streets Friday mornmg and afternoon. 
From 9 o'clock in the morning until dusk there was no cessa- 
tion in the procession. Scarcely did one funeral carriage pass 
before another came into sight wending its way with its sor- 
rowful burden to the burying grounds. 

Those who had no dead to mourn stood on the streets 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 191 

watching the grim processions as they passed. There was 
scarcely a dry eye in Collinwood. Aged men and little boys 
were alike stricken with the gravity of the situation. Hats 
went off everywhere and the streets of the village were fairly 
lined with men and children with heads bowed and with tears 
streaming from their eyes. 

"If they were only black hearses, I could stand it," said 
one old man with gray beard and hair. "But the white 
hearses! The children. All little children. It is too much." 

"Have you lost any?" questioned a sympathetic bystander. 

"No," said the old man, with tears streaming down his 
cheeks. "I have none to lose. None. I feel with them all." 

The full import of that terrible catastrophe only came home 
to Collinwood as those white hearses passed solemnly one by 
one on their way to the cemetery. Collinwood has been 
stunned. The enormity of the horror was to much for human 
reason to grasp. The public mind was dazed. 

Funerals Bring Full Realization. 

But Friday when the poor little twisted and charred bodies 
were being taken to their resting place the full extent of the 
fire was realized. It was all over. 

They had had their share of the terror and the horror as 
they were piled high in the hallway of the schoolhouse, with 
the hot flames sweeping upon them. Many lay on the floor 
waiting for death with limbs mangled and broken by the fall. 
Others unhurt, but pinioned down by the weight of those 
above them with their tiny hands stretched out for aid. for 
aid which did not come. There they died in agony. But 
their grief was over? 

It was the stricken homes, the hearths where no childish 



192 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

laughter again would be heard, where no childish complaints 
or quibblings — all of which now are cherished as the verita- 
blest treasure in the hearts of the parents — will again be 
brought to the ear of the parents, that the grief centered 
Friday. Childless fathers and childless mothers, who had 
lost all that made life worth while, it was to them that the 
hearts of the people went out on the first day that the bodies 
were being taken from them, never to be seen again. Theirs 
would be the long, dreary years and years of agony, untold 
and unknown to any but those who had lost their own. 

In the afternoon there were 35 more funerals, most of them 
being buried under the charge of the Rev. E. R. Wright, to 
whose Sunday school they belonged. 

Saturday morning funeral services were conducted for 16 
children by Father Bell. All of these children were identified, 
but the parents decided to have just one service for them all. 
They were buried side by side in one large grave in the Col- 
linwood Catholic cemetery. 

First Service Held. 

The first funeral Friday was that for Alma Gilbert, ten years 
old, who was one of the first little girls taken from the build- 
in"- and one of the first to be identified. The services were 

o 

held in her father's home on Lake Shore boulevard. 

The house and yard were crowded with persons eager to 
sympathize with the stricken parents. The majority of those 
who stood about the little bier felt the grief keenly, as but few 
of them but had dead on-js in their own home, or, worse still, 
had children burned in the fire who had not yet been identi- 
fied and never could be. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 193 

After this funeral the others came in rapid succession. The 
second was that of Morris Shepard, 54 Elsinore street. 

The lad was fourteen years old and was on the third floor 
when the fire started. His body was found far in the rear of 
the bodies stacked up in the doorway. He never had an op- 
portunity to get anywhere near the door. The services wert 
held from the family home. 

Saddest Funeral. 

The saddest funeral in Collinwood Friday was that of the 
three Hirter children, the two daughters and son of the jani- 
tor. They are Helena, thirteen ; Walter, fifteen, and Eda, 
eight. The services for these three victims were held simul- 
taneously with those for Lilly Rostick, six ; Robert Wickert, 
ten, and Henry Kuiat, thirteen. 

Mutterings against the janitor could be heard about the vil- 
lage all morning. Grief crazed parents, eager to wreak ven- 
geance upon anyone who could be held in any way responsi- 
ble for the deaths of their little ones, were eager to pick up 
the slightest rumor of carelessness or neglect. It did not take 
long for these rumors to spread to ominous threats against 
the janitor. 

All night and all morning police guarded the Hirter home 
against possible attacks. Angry parents who came to inquire 
what was his responsibility in the fire were turned away. 
While the funeral preparations were being made in the home 
the crowd collected about the house. The people had heard 
that the funeral would take place at 1 o'clock. Long before 
this time there was a crowd of 500 persons about the house. 

The police became alarmed and six extra patrolmen were 
hastened to the house to be prepared for emergencies. 



194 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

When the first little white casket appeared in the doorway, 
however, a silence fell upon the crow'd. When this casket 
was followed by two more just like it, hats went off and tears 
came to the eyes of many. 

Father Bowed With Grief, 

The father bowed with brief of his three lost children, and 
broken by the questionings and the suspicions of his neigh- 
bors, his head swathed in a great bandage, for he himself had 
been badly burned in the work of rescue, followed the little 
coffins from the door. He looked neither to the left nor the 
right, but followed his children with his eyes fixed in unutter- 
able grief on the boxes that contained all that was left of his 
own little ones. There was no fear of the crowd in his face. 
His grief was already too great. What more could mortal 
hand do? 

"This man with three dead ones of his own, could it be 
possible he had been guilty of any carelessness when the lives 
of his own babes w^ere at stake as well as those of a hundred 
and more of others?" questioned the crowd. 

Whatever their thoughts, all knew it was not the time to 
express them. Silently and carefully they opened a way as the 
policemen headed the procession to the German Presby- 
terian church. The crowd followed and remained outside, 
those who could not get in, until the services for the children 
were over. 

Again they made way as the coffins came out of the church 
and were carried down the street to the cemetery. And the 
crowd made no attempt at violence. 

One funeral was held Thursday night, the first of the vic- 
tims. The three children, James, fourteen, Norman, ten, 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 195 

and Max Turner, six, of 346 Collamer avenue, which left the 
home bereft, were among the first taken from the ruins of the 
burned school building and were soon identified. Friends and 
relatives gathered at the home and many others who could 
not get into the house stood outside to show their sympathy 
for the dead. The street was lined with people, who stood 
with hats off and heads bowed as the three white hearses left 
the house after the funeral. 

Then the people went back to their homes to mourn for 
their own dead and to prepare for their own funerals in the 
morning. 

There was little or no sleep in Collinwood all night, and 
vv^ith the early dawn everyone was up and preparing for the 
day's grim task. All day it was a repetition of the first scene. 
Funeral after funeral was held until it was too dark to take 
any more of the bodies to the cemetery. A\'hen dusk came 
50 bodies had been placed in vaults or lowered into the earth. 

And again the people went home for the night. But it was 
only with the thought of awakening in the morning to go 
through the same task. 

Mother Moans by Her Dead. 

The funeral of Lucy and Harry Zingleman, two little fire 
victims, aged eight and twelve respectively, the children of 
Mr. and Mrs. H. Zingleman, of 387 4th street, took place at 
11 o'clock. 

White crepe fluttered dismally on the front door of the 
humble weather beaten one-story cottage. A stolid dark 
browed man, the father, stood as if dazed, by the front door- 
step. ^ He held a broom with which he kept constantly sweep- 
ing across the stone. As the neighbors and friends, many of 



196 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

them weeping, straggled up the path, the man bowed his 
head, silently like some animal numbed with pain and fumbled 
for the door knob to open the door for the mourners. 

In the cramped little dining room, a board table was covered 
with flowers. In the other room a single sealed casket held the 
two little bodies. By its side the mother knelt and moaned. 
Some neighbor women with tears streaming down their faces 
put their arms about her. Some kissed her hair and clutched 
hands. 

Shows Her Love. 

A yellow haired little girl from next door came timidly up 
the path to the house. She had been a playmate of the dead 
children. Her little palm held a handful of nickels and pen- 
nies. She ran up to the first woman she saw and thrust the 
money into her lap. 

"Give them to Lucy's ma," she said as her lip began to 
quiver. "I am so sorry and want to help." 

The pastor read from the Bible, both in English and Ger- 
man. Then he talked about the inscrutable ways of Provi- 
dence, and while he said that in good time all tears would 
be wiped away and the reason of all sorrows understood, 
the sound of weeping was on all sides. For the first time 
since the shock of the terrible disaster the realization of death 
seemed to come to the afflicted families, who up until this 
time seemed only dazed with horror. 

Three little boys, playmates of the dead children, were 
pallbearers. As the minister talked sometimes they drove 
their fists into their eyes and cried. But when it was over 
and they had to take up the little casket which held, their 
dead comrades they braced up like brave little men. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

UNKNOWN STUMPS BURIED. 

BLACKENED BODIES OF UNIDENTIFIED PLACED 
IN ONE BIG GRAVE. 

Several scores of bodies of boys and girls who were burned 
to death in the Collinwood school fire were buried Saturday. 
The number of coffins laid in the earth that day was 70 in all. 

All through the main street of the town the funerals passed 
all day in one almost continuous procession. The hearses 
marked where one funeral cortege ended and the next began. 

The horses were kept trotting. Only at this pace could aU 
be gotten to the cemetery. 

Flag at Entrance of Church. 

A large American flag hung above the entrance of St. Mary's 
Catholic church from which 16 boys and girls were buried. 

This is the parish of Rev. Mark Pakiz. Most of his people 
are foreigners and are not yet naturalized. Nearly all still 
speak their old country language. 

The men are big broad shouldered workmen in the Collin- 
wood shops. Many are out of work and destitute. They 
thought that because they were not naturalized the village 
wouldn't help them. They were quickly convinced that this 
was not so. 

Sixteen White Coffins in Church. 

Mayor Westropp issued a proclamation in their own lan- 
guage and the city paid for many of their burials. The flag on 
the church Saturday was in recognition of this. A common 
grief had bound this people to the life of the old country. 



198 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Above the flag, the great bell in the tower tolled deep and slow, 
and one by one the 16 little coffins, decked with white flowers, 
were carried inside. Children were pallbearers. With them 
were little girls who carried tall candles. Lined on each side 
were sad-faced men and silent, dry-eyed victim's mothers. In 
a large row before the altar rail the bodies in their white cas- 
kets were laid. Four rows of pews were taken out to make 
room for them. The tolling ceased. The chanting of the 
solemn requiem mass began. Sobs broke the silence when the 
chanting ceased and the priests passed along the rows of dead 
and blessed each one. 

Service for Twelve. 

At the same hour another solemn high mass was held from 
St. Joseph's Catholic church, where the funerals of 12 children 
were held. They were buried side by side in one wide grave 
at Euclid Catholic cemetery. 

Not Enough Hearses to Carry Dead. 

Saturday for the first time undertakers' wagons were used 
to carry the dead in the funeral processions. There were not 
enough hearses available to care for all buried. Several of 
these undertakers' wagons were in the procession from St. 
JMary's church. Not enough funeral street cars could be ob- 
tained. Some of the funerals were carried to the cemetery in 
ordinary street cars run "special" and draped in black and 
white. At St. Joseph's Catholic church, where Rev. J. W. Bell 
held solemn high mass and 12 were buried, the services were 
impressive. Before 9 a. m. the first white hearse arrived. An- 
other quickly followed. Little girls in white were pallbearers. 
The doors opened. At the entrance the little procession was 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 199 

halted while the priest with outstretched arms gave them his 
blessing. 

One large white coffin held the charred bodies of three. 
These were Anna Kern, 8; Lillian Rommelfanger, 9, and Ru- 
dolph Kern, 12. They were playmates. When their poor 
charred, twisted little bodies were taken from the ruins of the 
fire the little girls were found together locked arm in arm. 
The body of the boy was found close by. They played to- 
gether. They died together. Together now they lie. It was 
nearly 9:30 before all the coffins had been born into the 
church and arranged in a long row before the altar. Fathers 
and mothers, sisters and brothers of the dead had followed 
the coffins into the church as they arrived. Others were held 
back. When the service began and these were admitted, the 
church wouldn't hold them all. Priests from Cleveland and 
other neighboring parishes assisted Father Bell. 

At the close of the" services the priests officiating, passed 
slowly down the row of dead children and again blessed each 
one. The last pra3'er was said at the cemetery when once more 
the victims of the fire lay in one wide grave side by side. 

Twelve separate funerals of children of the Collinwood Pres- 
byterian church were held Saturday at their homes. Eleven 
from this Sunday school were buried Friday. 

Two Mothers Faint. 

During the services at St. Joseph's church two women, 
mothers of dead children, became hysterical and fainted. They 
were carried out and revived. 

Two mothers mourned ove^ one casket in the St. Joseph's 
church. ^Irs. Lowry lost two children in the fire, Clara and 
Florence. Clara was found, but the bodv of the other was 



200 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

lost. Mrs. Lowry claimed a body which had been identified as 
that of Mabel Zimmerman as her child. Though the authori- 
ties decided that the body was that of the Zimmerman baby, 
yet the coffins were placed side by side in the church and both 
Mrs. Lowry and Mrs. Zimmerman mourned over it. 

Deputy Coroner McNeil announced that he had found the 
body of Florence Lowry. He told the mother, but she said 
that she was sure that the body claimed by the Zimmermans 
was her own. She said she would make no further claim for 
it. but would be content to visit the grave and mourn over it. 

Candles By Coffins. 

On each side of the little coffins in the church there was a 
lighted candle. Back of the candles were piled high masses of 
flowers, brought by the relatives and friends and also sent by 
sympathizers, who did not know the children, but who felt 
keenly themselves the heartaches of the stricken mothers. 

Amid a profusion of flowers and in the presence of a great 
crowd of people, the unidentified dead who lost their lives in 
the Collinwiid fire were laid at rest in Lake View Cemetery 
Monday. 

Twenty little white caskets, with soft rays of sunlight spark- 
ling among the blossoms which covered them, were laid side 
by side in one great grave. Above and all around were huge 
banks of flowers, while from a cross which surmounted the 
common resting place of the children hovered three white 
doves as in benediction. 

Hundreds Gathered in Sorrow. 

Early Monday morning, at the beginning of the day of pub- 
lic mourning in CoUinwood. hundreds began to gather at Shep- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 201 

ard's morgue, where the bodies of the children were resting 
in their coffins. Almost at the last moment three of the 
twenty-one bodies, so long unclaimed, were identified. These 
were those of Elsie Markushat, Edgar Woodhouse and Anna 
Kern, one, that of little Anna, was taken at noon to Notting- 
ham for burial. The other two were buried at Lake View 
with the unidentified dead. At 11 a. m. Rev. Gerard F. Patter- 
son, of the Church of the Incarnation, stood in the doorway of 
the morgue and offered a simple prayer. All about were hun- 
dreds of mourners, their heads bare, tears streaming down 
their cheeks. A mpment later eight pall-bearers carried out 
the flower-strewn caskets, each bearing a number. They were 
placed on two funeral cars. Preceded by a car filled with po- 
licemen under the charge of Captain Schmunk, and followed 
by the cars loaded with mourners, the procession moved to the 
cemetery. 

Services in the Churches. 

Prior to the services at the morgue, short memorial services 
were held in the Colhnwood churches. Relatives and friends 
of the unidentified dead and of the eight whose bodies cannot 
be found, gathered at their own churches to listen to the com- 
forting words of their pastors. From tlie churches the mourn- 
ers were taken in carriages to the special cars which carried 
them to the cemetery. At a fork in the driveways at the 
Euclid avenue entrance to Lake Mew Cemetery the town of 
Collinwood had purchased a lot where the unidentified dead 
might be buried. Here at noon thousands gathered and here 
in one grave, lined with flowers, the caskets were laid. Over 
the grave will be erected one monument to mark the resting 
place of the children. 



202 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

At the cemetery another simple service was held. "Lead, 
Kindly Light," was sung by a choir of twenty from the Col- 
lege for Women and twenty from Adelbert College. 

A prayer was said in English by Rev. E. R. Wright, 
of the Calvary Presbyterian Chapel at Collinwood, and a 
prayer in German by Rev. William J. Friedbolin, of the Collin- 
wood German Reform Mission. Rev. John D. Kaho, of the 
Collinwood M. E. Church, read the burial service, and the 
Italian boys' band played a dirge as at the same time the 
twenty white coffins were lowered to their bed of flowers in 
the grave. 

To that Infinite whence they came not long ago a band ot 
little children returned. Beneath the chill earth the black- 
ened stumps that were babies' arms will stretch in appeal to 
those whom they trusted, and will appeal in vain forever. In 
the minds of men and women, from whom has vanished all 
the light and joy in life, will ring through all the years the 
pitiful cries for help which were not answered. They went 
together, and fresh on their lips was their morning prayer to 
Christ, who said : "Suffer the little children to come unto me, 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 

One hundred and seventy-two children. One hundred and 
seventy-two pure hearts, on whom the taint of the world had 
not fallen ! One hundred and seventy-two clear, happy voices 
which shall sound no more ! 

Gone ! Gone ! Gone ! 

It was many weeks ago that the first unthinkable 
horror came. Appalled, unable to comprehend, the people 
who were there carried off their dead, and passed mechanically 
along the rows of distorted bodies, and counted, and searched, 
and tried to weep. Now the full sorrow of the thing has fal- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 203 

len, and black upon the folk of Collinwood, of Cleveland, of the 
world, has fallen the knowledge that children had been allowed 
to die ; that somehow, by someone, they could have been saved. 

Too late. The procession of the little innocents to the 
cities of the dead stretched on and on until Tuesday. Thirty- 
five of them came from one Sunday school, that of Cal- 
vary Presbyterian church in Collinwood. These were buried 
one by one. Twenty-three came from St. ]\lary's Catholic 
church. Fifteen came from the Reformed church, and seven 
were buried together Friday. Six came from the Sunday 
school of the Church of Christ. Many were never identified. 
Mere fragments of mortality, they were interre-d in Lake View 
cemetery, and above them was erected a common monument. 
Fathers and mothers will come there, through the years, and 
denied even the knowledge of their babies' graves, will bow 
in turn over each tiny mound that their tears may fall above 
the forms that once they clasped to their hearts. 

Through it all, rings the warning to the world : "Protect the 
children, lest the like befall your own !" How did it hap- 
pen? It was morning in Lakeview school, in North 
Collinwood. The children, more than 300 of them, were gath- 
ered in their classrooms. They had just concluded their morn- 
ing's song and prayer, and were turning to their lessons. A 
little girl came running from the basement. "The school — it's 
on fire," she gasped, and sped away. The janitor, Fred Hirter, 
sounded the alarm upon the big school gong. Three strokes 
rang out, and at the signal, each child sprang to its feet, and 
orderly, marched to the doors, the teachers patting time with 
their hands. First came the little tots, on the first floor, laugh- 
ing gleefully. It was the fire drill, they thought. "Pff!" 



204 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

A blast of hot air smote them in the face, and they shrank 
back. Through the front stairway, between the cracks and 
about the balustrades, the flames were leaping. "Forward, 
children, — quiet," said the teacher, who was in the lead. With 
all her flock but two or three she passed through the mounting 
flames, and out to safety. Not so the little ones of the three 
other rooms on that floor. The stairs were sinking upon the 
furnace underneath. They turned, and moaned with inarticu- 
late fear, they dashed for the rear door. What did they find? 
God knows ! Some say the door was locked ; others that half 
of it was fastened. A panic-stricken child stumbled and fell. 
One hundred others pushed on from behind, and thrusting 
those before them further still, heaped in a pitiful tangle at the 
foot of the stairs before that door. 

One Hot Blast and All Was Over. 

One teacher, commanding, pleading, threatening, drew half 
her flock back with her to their room, and standing on the 
fire escape, literally threw them to safety. Then came the 
climax of the horror. From the second floor came the rapid, 
clattering footsteps of the older pupils. Out of bounds of all 
authority, they leaped over the banisters ; plunged upon the 
tots below ; struggling, screaming, for an exit. Some of the 
boys, trained by play in the railroad yards to quick thought, 
drew back, and pulling with them such as would come, ran for 
their rooms, dropped from the windows or scaled the fire 
escape. Down in the press of doomed children two teachers 
were still at work. One, tall, strong, stood and bodily lifted 
her charges and thrust them up the stairs, and commanded 
them to jump for their lives. Another was knocked down and 
buried under the heap. It was just then that rescu^e, pitifully 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 205 

inefficient, came. The door was battered in, and strong arms 
tugged at the foremost. They could not be moved. The 
buried teacher was extricated, but she died. 

A hot blast of flame, drawn to the west entrance by the 
draft, came plunging down upon the crowd. Its work was 
almost instantaneous. Baby features shriveled in the fire ; soft 
tresses blazed, and the arms that had been outstretched to the 
offered succor stiffened. The rescuers fell back, appalled. The 
stairway fell, and down into the seething flames 100 children 
dropped, and lay still; They were already dead. Bounding, 
hideously bright, the fire finished its work, and when it was 
over, a heap of steaming ashes was all that was left of the in- 
nocents who had died. Seven teachers escaped ; one, faithful 
to her trust, though it carried her into the valley of the sha- 
dow, was utterly consumed, and another died after removal. 

The 44 children on the third floor, obedient to a teacher 
whom they loved, quietly descended the fire escape, and only 
then relieved their terror by their screams. The fire department 
had come, but it was able to do nothing. The apparatus was 
inefficient ; there were no ladders there, the water pressure was 
shamefully low. All it could do was to help in the slow pro- 
cession that moved with the charred bodies to the temporary 
morgue in the Lake Shore storehouse. Then came the hours — 
a day, a night, another day and night, of mothers and fathers 
moving through trying to identify their children. After this, 
the funerals. An mvestigation was made. But the children 
are dead, and no investigation in the world can bring them 
back to life, nor all the tears that are shed heal one awful 
wound seared into the soft flesh of the babies. Homes are 
^desolated, and no investigation can restore their happiness and 
peace. • 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CASKETS IN TIERS. 

AMBULANCES CARRY MANY WHITE COFFINS AT 
TIME THROUGH STREETS. 

A horse went floundering heavily through the mud of the 
street, dragging behind him a bespattered ambulance. In the 
ambulance, tier upon tier, were three little white caskets, one 
above the other. Behind were two carriages, through the 
windows of which one could see women, white-faced and bent 
dejectedly, looking out with hopeless, staring eyes; beside 
them were seated men with set, expressionless faces — the faces 
of persons who have passed beyond the point of suffering. On 
the other side of the street, and going in the same direction 
as the first cortege, was a white hearse, containing two small, 
white caskets. 

There followed five carriages and in these the occupants, as 
in the first carriages, wore the same strange expressions upon 
their faces. The fearful, haunted look in their eyes was that 
of the faithful dumb animal which has received its death 
wound and which knows not the reason for its suffering nor 
yet the cause. 

Still Another Hearse. 

Down a cross-street, a short half block away, was another 
white hearse, heading a sombre line of carriages, and in this 
hearse were the inevitable white caskets, three in number, one 
placed above the other, and flanked with flowers. 

In a small lane, in which stood several small tenement 
houses, was another ambulance and one carriage. In the 
ambulance two men, undertakers' assistants, .were hastily 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 207 

placing another diminutive white casket, and behind them 
stood a group of foreigners, men and women, gazing with 
stolid, heavy eyes at the casket — the white casket. Up in 
the center of the street, upon the car tracks and between the 
lines of hearses and carriages, rumbled a great dray, piled high 
with little rough boxes, and behind came ambulance after 
ambulance, hearse after hearse and carriage after carriage. 

A hearse would turn down one street, to be instantly fol- 
lowed by three or four carriages ; an ambulance would turn up 
the next street, and with this would go several more carriages. 
Before one door a hearse, next door an ambulance ; across the 
street a hearse, and from door after door fluttered floral 
wreaths, with their streaming ribbons of white. 

Collinwood Burying Its Dead. 

These were the scenes enacted in Collinwood on Friday, 
forty-eight hours after the terrible holocaust had occurred 
which stunned that village and sent a wave of horror over 
the entire country. Collinwood had started to bury its dead ! 
' — to hide forever from sight its 172 innocent, little victims 
who had met such a terrible fate on the preceding Wednesday. 

The spectators stood appalled at the sight. Elsewhere could 
be heard expressions of the deepest commiseration over the 
terrible calamity and elsewhere people were shocked and hor- 
rified over the disaster ; but there in Collinwood were the con- 
crete signs of the frightful catastrophe. 

Upon all sides and over every street hearses ancr ambulances 
were hurrying to the houses. The number of hearses available 
was totally inadequate, and ambulances and even street cars 
were pressed into service to carry the little caskets of white 
to church or cemetery. From nearly every other door, and 



208 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

upon some streets from every door, fluttered the floral wreaths 
which marked the homes of the dead. 

And yet many of the people of Collinwood, one met upon 
the street, were paying no more than passing attention to these 
almost endless funeral corteges, and the constant passing and 
repassing of ambulances and hearses. These people had 
been dazed by the awful tragedy. The immensity and the 
horror of the blow which had befallen their devoted village 
had completely stunned them. Mechanically they performed 
the tasks assigned to them. Mechanically they visited other 
bereaved homes and offered their sympathy, and mechanically 
it was received, for the grief of the people of Collinwood was 
beyond words. 

Scenes in the Morgue. 

In the Town Hall is situated also the fire station, contain- 
ing the six pieces of obsolete fire-fighting apparatus, which 
should have been destroyed years ago. Protection Hose, one 
read over the door. Protection Hose, what irony ! for directly 
under the inscription lay body after body of the little children 
whom it had utterly and miserably failed to protect when 
death had reached out with fiery hands to clasp them. 

Here in this morgue was the full force of the blow under- 
stood, for here next to the school building itself was the 
theater of greatest suffering. Here, in the days following the 
fire were enacted pitiful tragedies which are beyond words to 
describe ; the tragedies of broken hearts ; of women — mothers — 
whose minds were deranged at sight of their beloved ones 
lying there before them in the long lines of blackened, maimed 
bodies that looked little like human beings ; fathers, stern and 
white-faced, trying hard to keep up, looking here and there 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 209 

among the little forms, fearful of finding that which they 
sought ; tiny bodies of what were beautiful children, the frail 
arms crossed in agony over their heads and the lips drawn 
with the anguish of the torture endured before death came 
as a sweet relief to end their sufferings. 

Bowed by Anguish. 

Here and there mothers, bowed in sorrow and anguish, 
searched among the long lines for their own — for the tots that 
had left them on the fatal morning of Ash Wednesday, happy 
and prattling of their little triumphs in school, or worrying 
over the lesson which had been too much for the little minds. 
The burned bodies lay in rows where they had been carried 
in, wrapped in anything convenient — a blanket, a sheet, or an 
overcoat. Only the lower parts of the limbs were left ex- 
posed for identification. 

At the door a man turned pale at the pathetic spectacle. 

"They were in the entrance to the school," he said, "and 
they seemed to fall one upon the other. I tried to pull some 
out, but they were massed in so tightly I could not stir any 
of them." As he talked his face became drawn with pain as he 
gazed hopelessly over the rows of little bodies. "You notice," 
he continued, "that nearly all of the upper parts of the bodies 
are gone. They were struggling when the floors gave way, 
and the blazing mass fell upon their heads. But I could tell 
my boy's shoes. They were new last week and he was so 
proud of them. But I can't find— he isn't" — then the white 
lips began to quiver, the man tried to continue, gave an agon- 
ized sob that told of a breaking heart, and turned and hurried 
away. He could not find his boy. Even that consolation was 
denied him. 



210 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

And so it was on every side. In groups of 10 or 20, men 
and women were let into the morgue. Slowly they passed 
down the aisles. There was not much hysteria. A sob, a 
groan, a face contorted with agony, a nod, and then a white 
cloth was placed over a small form, indicating that it had been 
identified. Here and there mothers related stories of their 
children. Their success in the school, little acts of kindness 
they had done and the pleasure they took in this or that mat- 
ter pertaining to their studies. And always the mothers spoke 
of their children in the present tense. To them, in the first 
great shock of the calamity, had not come as yet the realiza- 
tion of the fact that their loved ones had gone forever. 

Three Caskets in Row. 

Everywhere were the same signs of a great sorrow, an ap- 
palling tragedy beyond one's power to fully realize. But most 
pathetic of all were the stricken homes. In one home, in the 
parlor, stood three little white caskets, side by side. A son 
and two little daughters — all the children of that home — had 
been swept away. What words of sympathy could one offer 
to that mother sitting, dried-eyed, in her vigil beside her 
children? Who could gauge the extent of her sufferings or 
her loss? And so it was in all the homes. In many were two 
caskets, in others one, but always the mother sitting there 
wrapped in her mantle of grief. 

The supreme horror of the disaster, however, was that the 
fathers and mothers of many of the little victims stood before 
the doors of the school house and saw the flames creep up 
and blacken the faces of the screaming children. 

The vestibule at the front entrance to the school and the 
rear hall way were packed almost to the top with white faces. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 211 

Some of the little ones recognized their fathers or mothers 
in the gathering crowd and in their childish treble cried : 
"Papa, save me," "mama, come to me." Little hands were 
stretched out supplicating to be saved. 

Crazed by Grief. 

Fathers crazed by grief dashed madly into the school and 
strove to release their children from the struggling mass. 
But they could not. Mothers screaming wildly for aid for 
their children, fell fainting at the awful scene they were called 
upon to witness. Then the fire swept up through the mass of 
children and silenced their cries. 

Could Not Give Aid. 

Most touching is the fact that nothing could be done to save 
the little ones, though rescuers were at both the front and rear 
entrances many minutes before the flames reached the chil- 
dren. In their wild panic the pupils had wedged themselves so 
tightly into the narrow passageway that the rescuers pulled 
the flesh from the arms of some of them in trying to draw 
them oj-it. 



CHAPTER XX. 

SEEK BETTER SCHOOLS. 

ERECT BETTER BUILDINGS AND ENFORCE THE 
LAWS TO SAVE CHILDREN. 

"The lives of all the school children in the land will be in 
danger until the people of this country erect better school 
buildings and enforce the laws regulating them." 

Such was the expression of Col. W. J. Giffin, of Washington, 
one of the most noted building authorities, just after the great 
fire in Collinwood. 

"At the present time our school buildings, or rather most 
of them, are mere shells, veritable fire traps, in which the chil- 
dren are in danger of their lives. Half of them — yes, even 
fewer than half — are even properly equipped with fire escapes, 
and when they are, they are generally located in a place in- 
accessible in time of need. 

"The disaster at Collinwood, however, has done much good, 
in that it has awakened the public conscience, and already all 
over the land the work, of protecting the school children is 
under way, I am glad to say. 

Buildings Too High. 

"For years I have made a careful study of the school house 
question, and have come to the conclusion that we make our 
buildings too high. In the smaller towns there is absolutely 
no excuse for a school building to be more than two stories 
in height, and in the cities, where land is more valuable, they 
should not be more than three stories, at the outside. There 
should be no wood in it — for wood will burn, vou know. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 213 

"The floors must be of concrete or of steel, and even the 
window casings must be of a substance other than wood. 
Wide hallways are an essential, for in times of panic children 
cannot be controlled, any more than can grown people, and 
they rush frantically for safety — the open air. 

'"'Then it is that the necessity for wide hallways and extra 
wide stairways become apparent, for the little ones will not 
maintain order and march gracefully out two by two, as they 
are accustomed to during a fire drill. 

Schools Tinder Boreas. 

"At the present time most of the brick school houses of the 
country are simply tinder boxes, ready at all times, on the 
slightest provocation, to burst into flame. The brick walls, 
as soon as the roof falls in, become flues, sucking up the 
draft from below, and inside of a few minutes at the most a 
solid column of flame is shooting up from the bottom, de- 
stroying everything in its path. 

"As we all know, a big fire furnishes its own draft, and I 
do not need to explain further when I say that this draft be- 
comes a thousand times greater when this draft is confined in- 
side four solid brick walls with no cover on. No fire depart- 
ment in the world can stop such a blaze, once it gets a fair 
start, because the fire burns too quickly for the firemen to act. 

"I am more than forcibly impressed with the plan of building 
schoolhouses that have been adopted over in England. There 
a few thinking men have put their heads together, and the re- 
sult is that several schools have been erected in which the 
children are safe, so far as human ingenuity can make them. 

"Down through the center of the school building, com- 
pletely cut off from all connection with the inside of the build- 



214 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

ing, except by means of an iron floor reached by windows on 
the various floors, runs a passageway, encased in a solid brick 
wall of great thickness. 

Seeks Broad Stairways. 

"This encased stairway, broad enough to accommodate sev- 
en or eight persons at once, extends from the top of the build- 
ing to the bottom, ending out doors, some distance from the 
building itself, thus making what you might call a tunnel lead- 
ing from the upper air to the ground. This brick tunnel is, of 
course, resting on solid iron beams that fire would have hard 
work to damage, and is practically cut off from the building it- 
self. 

"Suppose an alarm of fire is sent in. Instantly each pupil in 
the building leaves the room he is in. runs to the iron platform 
outside the room and enters the brick tunnel, where he is as 
safe as if he were blocks away from the fire. As I have said 
this stairway, protected on all sides by thick, brick walls, can 
defy the fire indefinitely, and long before the building has been 
materially damaged by the flames — supposing, of course, that 
the structure would burn — each pupil is out and far away. 

Public Is Aroused. 

"Such a building is not, of course, possible in the smaller 
communities in this country, but I hope to see the time, — and 
that near at hand — wheii every big city will be equipped with 
them. The public has been aroused as never before by the 
Collinwood horror, and action is being taken all over the 
United States that will work for great good. 

"Every school building more than one story in height should 
be equipped with fire escapes leading from every window, and 
these fire escapes should be broad enough to accommodate sev- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 215 

eral persons at a time, instead of the narrow, parsimonious lit- 
tle things like those at present in use on most of the school 
houses in the various cities and towns. 

"Are we so selfish, and so thoughtful of the almighty dollar 
that we consider it of more value than the lives of our children, 
and the lives of our neighbor's children. I say NO most em- 
phatically and point to the action now being taken in hun- 
dreds by the school authorities in nearly all the cities of the 
country as proof of my words. Why, even one of the city 
schools in Cleveland, which prided itself on having the most 
carefully protected buildings in the country, already has 
closed one of them in order that it may be put in safe condi- 
tion." 

Newspaper Comments. 

Before the blame for the school fire horror had been fixed, 
yes, even before the last pitiful little body was dragged from 
the ruins the great newspapers of the country began printing 
editorials demanding a reform in school buildings, and a 
stricter enforcement of the law relating to the overcrowding of 
public buildings. Said the Baltimore Sun : 

"The death of a great number of children in a burning 
schoolhouse at North Collinwood, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, 
is a horrible event which should be taken to heart by school 
authorities all over the land. There was an overheated furnace 
and the building had but two exits, of which one was closed. 
The overheating of the furnace of a school building 
should not have occurred and the structural arrangements 
should have been such as to favor, not to prevent, quick egress. 
This is obvious enough now to the school management of 
Collinwood ; it should have been noted before. 



216 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"The lesson can hardly be lost upon school authorities else- 
where. It is up to them to inspect their buildings and take 
note of the fidelity of janitors whose business it is to regulate 
furnaces. Are our school buildings in Baltimore so arranged 
as not to catch fire readily from the accident of a careless 
janitor and to give easy and abundant ways of exit in case of 
fire? Do teachers drill themselves and the pupils to do the 
sensible thing when an alarm is sounded, avoiding panic and 
death from wild rushing for the doors? It is incumbent on 
the authorities everywhere to take all steps necessary to pre- 
vent duplication of the unspeakable horrors at Cleveland." 

Sacrifice of School Children. 

The New York World said : 

"The fate of the Cleveland children slaughtered in a school- 
house fire panic is peculiarly deplorable. 

"They were not taking chances with death in an inflamable 
theatre or on a tinder-box excursion boat. Their little lives 
were sacrificed in a building to which the city authorities had 
assigned them and which it was a first duty to make safe. The 
locked rear door and the lack of other exits show how this 
responsibility had been met. Official negligence wears here 
its ugliest look. 

"Granting that the school-house was a fire-trap, were there 
no precautions against panic? Was there no fire-drill such 
as has more than once saved the lives of New York's school 
children in emergencies? As recently as Jan. 2 last the 2,500 
pupils of School No. 86 marched out in perfect order while the 
flames were being fought. 

"To all cities in the nation this catastrophe is summary no- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 217 

tice to set their school-houses in order and safeguard the lives 
of their young wards with every device against fire and with 
all possible preventives of panic." 

In the tragedy lax enforcement of the law was seen by the 
Chicago Examiner, which said : 

"The disaster in a public school in the suburbs of Cleveland 
is an example of a truth long proclaimed in these columns, and 
that is the sensible proposal that the egress from a building 
holding a large number of people should be based on the pos- 
sibilities of a few moments. 

"But civilization persists in the evident murderous ab- 
surdity of buildings, subject to fire, easily filled by the mul- 
titude coming early and taking its time to enter. However — 
and it is a terrible 'however' — the attempt to get out all at 
once usually is deadly. 

"When the audience, taking an hour to enter, has tried to 
go out in a body in a few moments at the cry of fire the conse- 
quences frequently have been frightful. 

"Of course, there is the much larger cost of buildings and of 
grounds in case of complete effort to prevent loss of life. But 
the school buildings ought to be the exemplar of human life 
held more precious than the mere cost of buildings. It is, 
therefore, a shock when an accident of this too common char- 
acter happens in a public building. 

Confronts the Authorities. 

"As a matter of fact, no building intended for public assem- 
blages should lack the features necessary for the preservation 
of human life. And that necessity is a thing confronting the 
authorities. Whether a school house or a theater, the au- 
thorities, at heart and in the law, are responsible. 



218 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Some officer, some ofificial authority, is responsible for the 
character of these buildings. There are laws. The laws arc 
not bad usually, but they are seldom enforced. 

"Who is responsible for these catastrophes of non-enforce- 
ment more than the public officer violating his oath?" 

Says the Cleveland Press: 

"Death reaches out and claims the beloved child of your 
dearest friend. You go to the stricken home, the heart-broken 
father or mother meets you at the door, and instead of the 
words of sympathy you thought you w^ould speak, you clasp 
your friend's hand, bow your head and are silent. 

"So to-day Cleveland, at the home of her friend, Collinwood, 
full of sympathy for her grief-stricken friend, bows her head, 
clasps her hand, and is silent. 

"In the face of such a pitiful tragedy as the one which vis- 
ited our neighbor and friend yesterday words are meaningless, 
and he who tries to speak them only proves the inadequacy of 
language to express the real depths of emotion. 

"Those of us who are parents, who get from the tender souls 
whom God has given to us the inspiration to meet life's daily 
battles with a braver spirit, realize at a time like this how large 
a part of our lives our children arc. how sacred a thing is the 
protection which we owe to our own children as parents ; to 
all children as citizens. 

"Are we as alive as we should be to thesacredness of the 
duty which -the responsibility of parenthood and citizenship 
imposes? 

"One hundred and sixty children met untimely death in one 
of the most awful forms in Collinwood yesterday. 

"The soul sickens at the thought of the cruel torture to those 
choking, burning, writhing little bodies. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 219 

"And yet, broadly speaking, the fault is ours, as a people. 
Ours! Ours!! 

"The cheapest thing in this great American republic to-day 
is human life. 

"Five hundred people, most of them children, were burned 
to death in the Chicago Iroquois theater fire because we, as 
a people, were too busy making dollars to give even a thought 
to the protection of the lives of theater patrons. 

"A thousand people, most of them children, were sacrificed 
on the altar of greed and public thoughtlessness in the Slocum 
disaster in Long Island sound. 

"One hundred and seventy-two children were killed in Col- 
linwood just because we as a people do not love our children 
enough to tax ourselves to build schoolhouses of steel and 
stone and other fireproof materials. 

"If out of this pitiful tragedy grows an awakened public con- 
science, a determination on the part of each one of us to do 
his share toward better safeguarding the lives of other chil- 
dren, then the 172 victims of our thoughtlessness will not have 
died in vain." 

Peril of School Children. 

And from the Chicago News : 

"In the face of the dreadful slaughter of the innocents a^ 
Collinwood, O., there is no need that many words be spoken. 
There is need, however, for immediate and energetic action. 
Since a public school building in a suburb of Cleveland proved 
so shockingly ill prepared to permit the escape of its little in- 
mates when it took fire, there is no reason to doubt that many 
other school buildings are equally perilous to the pupils who 
assemble in them. 



220 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Accounts of the fire at Collinwood indicate that the Uves 
of all the children might have bj^een saved if the building had 
been in reasonable condition to permit of rapid departure from 
its doors and windows. It had but inadequate fire escapes for 
its hundreds of occupants. One of its rear doors was locked. 
Its front doors were useless. Its halls were so narrow that 
they afforded no chance for free movement. They served 
merely as traps, into which the children, driven by the immin- 
ent peril in which they found themselves, trampled one an- 
other to death or fell and were burned in heaps. 

Urges Better Protection. 

"How much intelligence has been used in protecting the 
school children of Chicago? A great deal of intelligence, we 
think. Yet it should be the care of the board of education 
and the school authorities generally, as well as of the city 
building commissioner, to examine once more all the exits and 
fire escapes and hallways of all the school buildings and to 
have every defect remedied. To the memory of the innocent 
lives sacrificed in Collinwood there should be paid effective 
homage in the form of untiring efforts to prevent other chil- 
dren in this civilized country from being roasted or trampled 
to death." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

DECRIES TALL BUILDINGS. 

"SAFESGUARD PUBLIC SCHOOLS" IS CRY THAT 

ARISES. 

An emphatic protest against tall buildings for school pur- 
poses is made by the Chicago Journal, which says : 

"The Collinwood school building that was burned, costing 
the lives of little children, was three stories high. It oc- 
cupied land in a suburb of the city, and that land could not 
have been worth more than $1,000 an acre, if so much. Why 
was the building made three stories high? 

"No building to be occupied as a public school should ever 
have more than two stories, even where land is expensive. 
This rule has not prevailed in the erection of Chicago school 
buildings or of those in the suburbs. Out northwest, for ex- 
ample, there is one school building, standing alone in the midst 
of open fields, and it is five stories high. 

Buildings Far Too High. 

School buildings in the city are all higher than they should 
be, when the safety of occupants in case of fire is considered. 

"The board of education should make sure that all school 
buildings are as well protected against a catastrophe like that 
in Cleveland as they can be. Especially should it see that all 
doors open outward and that every exit is kept open during 
school hours. 

"But, more important still, the board should now adopt the 
policy of building no school house more than two stories high. 
Such a policy may perhaps slightly increase the expenses of 



222 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

the taxpayers, but what is expense in comparison with such a 
loss as that at CoUinwoocl, where nearly two hundred house- 
holds were plunged into grief as the result of negligence and 
carelessness?" 

Little Children Sacrificed. 

The Cleveland Leader says : 

"Dreadful as the slaughter of little children in the Collin- 
wood schoolhouse was in itself, the worst phase of the pitiful 
sacrifice of young lives is the needlessness of it all. The boys 
and girls who perished in that slaughter pen might have es- 
caped if the building had been safer and better cared for. And 
there is a sickening menace of like horrors in other places, in 
the story of the Collinwood tragedy. 

"How many schoolhouses in Cleveland have hall doors 
which are big enough, both front and rear, for emergency 
use? How many of these doors open inward? How many are 
kept so locked or otherwise fastened that they could not be 
opened instantly in case of lire? How many schoolhouses 
are well equipped with fire escapes? In how many are attic 
rooms, without proper means of exit, used as classrooms? 

"Every one of these questions may involve the safety or 
destruction of many children. Every one must be answered. 
If the answer is not what it should be then every defect so re- 
vealed must be remedied. It is not a matter for parleying or 
delay. 

Imperative Need Shown. 
"The horrible Collinwood lesson brings home to every 
man and woman in Cleveland the imperative need of adopting 
all of the safeguards in schoolhouses which common sense 
and experience demand. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 223 

"Far better one-story relief buildings with all their defects, 
than firetraps of whatever architectural appearance. Better no 
school than a slaughter house. 

"And how frequent and thorough are fire drills? How 
nearly automatic has the marching out of the children become 
when the fire gong rings? How completely in hana do the 
teachers feel that their little charges are, and how well pre- 
pared for emergencies? 

• "The slaughter in Collinwood is past mending. That record 
is closed. What can be done, what must be done, now is to 
exhaust every resource to prevent another such tragedy. There 
is no lack of pity and tenderness for the families plunged into 
grief and the long nightmare of a dreadful memory. There 
must be no failure to take the dire lesson to heart and make 
it the means of safeguarding other children, in other schools, 
more perfectly than they have ever yet been protected." 

Said the Cleveland News : 

"Unquestionably the cause of the large number of deaths 
in the Collinwood fire was the closed door at the foot of the 
rear stairway — the door behind which the bodies of the little 
ones were piled several feet deep. 

"The main — the all-important — question now is who was 
responsible for that door's having been closed when it should 
have been opened. It seems to have been established that 
the door did not swing inward, as was stated. It is also clear 
that the hallway was too narrow, a fault of the architect who 
designed the building. But even. with all the defects of the 
structure, if the door had been open or unfastened so that 
the children could have got out the death list would have been 
insignificant as compared with the great total that has now 
been counted. 



224 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"Unfortunately there is no law covering criminal careless- 
ness in Ohio unless the person who is careless is at the same 
time violating some law. 

"The Collinwood holocaust is the most fearful calamity in 
the history of Cleveland and vicinity. Its horror is inex- 
pressible. The anguish that must have crazed the minds and 
tortured the bodies of those children, struggling, suffocating, 
burning alive, leaves us speechless when we think of it. 

"Fortunately, most of the little victims met a death that was 
a little merciful in its swiftness if not in its terrible manner. 
Comparatively few live to sufifer. But the anguish of hundreds 
of stricken parents and brothers and sisters will endure 
through life. The sympathy of the whole country is held out 
to them, but it can do little for them. No sympathy can 
bring back the little babes that went merrily to Lake View 
school Wednesday morning. 

Might Have Been Prevented. 

"Perhaps the most horrifying feature of the whole afifair is 
that it might have been prevented. 

"Let us learn to the full the terrible lesson so terribly taught. 
Let us realize the only good that ever comes out of such evil 
catastrophes. 

"After the Iroquois theater fire, theaters all over the coun- 
try became subject to searching inquiry. Many improve- 
ments resulted. Cleveland theaters were made safer than they 
ever were before. They are safe still. The vigilance of man- 
agers and city authorities has never been allowed to relax. 

"Now what of our schoolhouses? We have fire wardens 
who inspect theaters and firemen detailed to attend perform- 
ances, theoretically to watch over the safety of our citizens, 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 225 

but did anyone ever hear of firemen being stationed at school- 
houses to guard the safety of helpless children? 

"How often do the fire wardens inspect schoolhouses? Are 
the school buildings all fireproof, as some of the newer ones 
are claimed to be? Are the school heating appliances all in 
first-class condition? Would it not be well to install school 
heating plants in detached buildings? How many schools 
have adequate exits? How many winding stairways are 
there? How many narrow passages, choked vestibules and 
mantraps of whatever sort waiting to share their little prey? 

"If there are none, thousands of parents will be glad to know 
it. If there are, thousands of mothers and fathers demand 
their removal. 

"Let us know about our Cleveland schools. Let us have 
inspection, inquiry, publicity. No amount of this will mitigate 
in the least degree the horror of the Collinwood tragedy. But 
it may prevent its re-enaction in Cleveland any day. It 
doesn't take a fire to start a panic. A scream in any school 
corridor in Cleveland might send hundreds of children strug- 
gling to agonizing deaths to-morrow — the more so because 
our children, unfortunately, know as much about the Lake 
View holocaust as we do. 

Reforms in our school buildings will cost money. It must 
come out of the public purse this time. Let us spend it while 
the mood is on vis. 

Will We Forget? 

"Two weeks hence we shall be absorbed in other subjects — 
politics, legislation, business, baseball, scandal — each accord- 
ing to his bent. The Collinwood calamity will have dropped 
out of our reading and our conversation almost altogether. 



226 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

"As a people, we are blessed with a short memory. With 
the utmost cheerfulness and dispatch we proceed to forget 
what it would be disagreeable to remember. The few mem 
ories that we cling to most fondly are the little incidents in 
which we have figured to our own credit. The great blunders 
we have committed, the wrongs we have been guilty of, the 
deep griefs we have suffered — these we choose to forget. 

Horror Fades Quickly. 

"It is a lamentable fact that we are habituated to horrors 
and human hecatombs. The Iroquois, Slocum and San Fran- 
cisco disasters were faint memories within six months of their 
occurrence. The Boyertown calamity occurred less than two 
months ago. Little recollection of it remains in our minds 
now, though it happened in an adjacent state and was every 
bit as bad as the crime of Collinwood. 

"Perhaps nothing so well illustrates the immensity of our 
country as our indifference to disaster except when it occurs 
at our very door. In England a railroad wreck in which half 
a dozen lives are lost scandalizes the whole country for 
weeks. In America railroad wrecks, mine horrors and even 
such peculiarly appalling disasters as the sacrifice of children's 
lives in Collinwood are commonplace. 

"It is not to our credit. It shows our boasted civilization 
up as a pretty poor thing. 

Can't Forget Children. 

"The horrors named, with many more that have entirely 
slipped from memory, will endure in agonizing recollection for 
decades, but only in the immediate communities where they 
occurred. Collinwood, the scene of several disastrous acci- 
dents, can never forget the Lake View school fire. Cleveland 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 227 

may forget the Central viaduct disaster, but it will never for- 
get the little children who laid down their lives at Lake View 
school because someone had blundered. 

"The rest of the country may, and no doubt will, forget. 
Most communities have horrors of their own to shudder at — 
skeletons in their own closets. Think of the towns you 
know. Elyria, Mentor, Ashtabula? What do their names 
suggest ? 

Sacrifice Needless, 

"Needless, heedless sacrifice of human life. That is all. 

"All over the United States, all over the world for that mat- 
ter, Cleveland today is principally known as the city where 
172 children were burned alive. 

"The country will forget that. What does it care for chil- 
dren's life? Wherever Collinwood is an unknown village far 
.away, there the fate of the 172 little victims will be forgotten. 
Here, where Collinwood is as a member of our family, it can 
never be forgotten. 

"The wreath of glossy green leaves on the door in the next 
block means nothing to us. But the spray of pink roses on our 
own door? Ah, that is different. 

Perhaps when there is no longer a single little community 
in the United States without its own ghastly memory, the 
nation may awaken from its indifference. We are short-mem- 
oried as a people. Alany of us may be talking base-ball a 
fortnight hence. But when we have all had crepe tied to our 
own doors, our memories may be jogged to the extent of 
doing something about it." 



CHAPTER XXII. 

SACRIFICE OF LIVES. 

NO EXCUSE FOR TERRIBLE LOSS OF LIFE, SAYS 
ST. LOUIS PAPER. 

The St. Louis Republic said : 

"Every detail of the holocaust at the Collinwood suburb of 
Cleveland attests that the lives of half the children in the 
burned school building were sacrificed to short sighted negli- 
gence and incompetence that have no other name than crim- 
inal. 

"The school authorities of the town cannot escape censure 
if the municipal authorities were derelict in their duties. A 
school board having under its charge the lives as well as the 
training of hundreds of children can hardly escape severe con- 
demnation for neglecting so simple and inexpensive a pre- 
caution of safety as the fire escapes that were wanting. 

Lack of Discipline. 

"All through the tragedy there was unreadiness, lack of dis- 
cipline, panic and death. Somebody should be held accounta- 
ble for the lives needlessly sacrificed. Equally with the vic- 
tims of similar neglect in the management of the Boyertown 
picture show, the lives of the Collinwood children call for 
atonement. 

"Happily the St. Louis schools are well equipped to meet 
a panic originating in fire or other cause. But it makes no 
difference whether the place in which large numbers of peopb 
are habitually assembled be a school or a theater or a hall for 
public meetings, there is under the laws a punishable offense 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 229 

committed when such horrors are recorded as those of the 
Iroquois theater, the Boyertown show and the ColHnwood 
school. The best way to prevent them is to enforce the law." 
Said the Columbus Press-Post : 

"Language fails to express the shock of horror caused by 
the catastrophe which befell so many school children in Cleve- 
land's suburb of ColHnwood. Language is even inadequate to 
describe it, as all must realize who have followed the narra- 
tion of the terrible details. 

"The most skillful news writers find their hands almost par- 
alyzed and their brains stupefied in attempting to tell the 
pitiful story. There is no inspiration to lofty figures of speech, 
no inclination for fiorid disclosure. Plain words, plainly 
threaded together, tell the harrowing tale. 

Fancied Security's Snare, 

"We feel here in Columbus that we are safeguarded against 
such catastrophe. No doubt the people of ColHnwood felt ex- 
actly the same way. Calamities of that sort do not befall the 
wary, but fancied security sets the snare that is not discovered 
until too late. 

"A competent and thorough fire drill is a good discipline 
and in most cases is a sufficient protection against danger. But 
even a fire drill will not obviate panic when children are ex- 
pected to march through a gaping inferno. 

"In addition to a thorough fire drill, to discipfine pupils, 
there should be adequate means of egress. No schoolhouse 
should be without exterior fire escape stairways reaching to 
every schoolroom, even though the building be not more than 
two stories high, which is a matter that should be given im- 



230 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

mediate attention by the board of education in this city," 

The Indianapolis News commented thus : 

"Accustomed as we are to our almost daily horror, the fire 
at Cleveland comes still as an awful shock. Nor does there 
seem to be great criticism due for lack of preventives. A two- 
story brick building ought, in the nature of things, to be safe. 
True, there was only one fire escape, yet numerous fire escapes 
would have been a frail dependence for children. There were 
two stairways ; and these, if of the right relative capacity, 
should have been sufBcient. The "fire drill," too, had been 
practiced. The children responded to it, and got to the lower 
floor. But alas ! they had been taught only to go to the door 
that was now was barred by the flames. 

"There was a blockade and in a moment pressure from the 
rear completed the tragedy. Of course, one might ask why 
was there a fire. It is said that it came from a defective fur- 
nace. If so, here was indeed grave fault. It is known also 
that the building was overcrowded ; here was another fault." 

The Springfield Republican says: 

"What every community throughout the country is ever 
fearful of in relation to its schools and its children therein has 
befallen the village just outside the city limits of Cleveland, 
and that which was spoken of Rama by the Hebrew prophet 
may now be heard there in measurement of the uttermost 
depths of human anguish — "lamentation and weeping and 
great mourning, Rachel weeping for her childrey." 

Mourn for Children. 

"We have had similar fire horrors with even greater sacrifice 
of life, and one only within a few weeks where children and 
adults perished by scores together. But how much worse it 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 231 

seems where the great sacrifice of life is almost exclusively 
confined to little children ! It is a story which strikes with 
sickening force into the parental heart all over the land. 

"The glory of the American democracy is its common 
schools, which stand also as the witness to the world for the 
strength and genuineness of its purposes in the work of up- 
lifting the race. No expense has seemed too great for it in 
the work of bringing its children of all classes into a com- 
mon education. And with what care it watches over the chil- 
dren as they come together in its schools — always and es- 
pecially with an eye to the possibilities of fire, and taking 
pains through the fire drill and in other ways to prevent such 
a horror as has always been feared and has now come. We 
may not forget, in the great pity of it all, the sore affliction 
which falls also upon this splendid spirit of our democracy." 

Stated the Hamilton (Ont.) Spectator: 

"The fire horror in a Cleveland suburban school has brought 
terror to the hearts of thousands of parents in all parts of the 
country, and boards of education everywhere will be taking 
stock in an effort to further safeguard the lives of children 
under their care. So far as the calamity was explained the 
cause was not through any absence of fire drill, the thing we 
have pinned our faith to in this city as the best safeguard 
against similar catastrophe. 

Children Flee in Terror. 

"What seems to have been the cause of such enormous loss 
of life as has been recorded was the fact that the rear doors 
were closed and locked. Seeing the smoke and flame, the 
children headed down the stairway for the front door, became 
excited and rushed ahead in panic. Either the doors were 



232 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

never opened, or, if they were, were soon forced shut again 
by the crush of human bodies piling up against them. 

"There are but two or three school buildings in Hamilton 
where the hallways are narrow ; there are no schools where 
the doors open inwar^. The horror demonstrates the fact that 
while fire drill may be perfect when given for exhibition pur- 
poses it may be expected to fail when the children are brought 
face to face with actual smoke and flame. In such case there 
must be other safeguards." 

The Hartford Courant made the following comment: 
"The carelessness which made this burnt ofifermg of budding 
lives possible is quite as apalling as the disaster itself. Doors 
being closed in a three-story brick building with a mass of 
children on every floor ; one fire escape ; the heating apparatus 
directly under the stairways leading downward ; and the evi- 
dent surprise of everyone that a fire should have occurred. 
There is some question as to whether the back door of the 
building w-as locked ; but the first rush against it fastened it 
as tightly as if it had been locked. 

Furnace a Deadly Danger, 

"The furnace or heating apparatus, however, was the deadly 
danger. It should have been inclosed in a cemented chamber 
near the side or a corner, with the proper radiating pipes, so 
that if it became red hot nothing would be burned but its own 
material and perhaps the ends of the pipes Instead, it ap- 
pears simply to have been planted under the stairways with 
wood all about it. 

"But. being thus dangerously planted, with what minute 
and constant care, it should have been watched during school 
hours, and with what a stolid and dreadful carelessness it was 
not watched ! — the fire itself being ample proof of this." 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 233 

The Rochester Union and Advertiser said : 

"The only conclusion at which one can arrive after reading 
the accounts of the disaster at North Collinvvrood, near Cleve- 
land, in which between 170 and 180 children lost their lives, 
is that there was criminal negligence on the part of the town 
authorities in not having a better equipped fire department pre- 
pared to meet such an emergency. 

Trampled to Death. 

"To make this horror complete the door at the rear entrance 
was closed, and the children, who came down the stairway 
pellmell, trampled one another to death until their bodies were 
piled high in the hall near the door. Most of the deaths, it 
appears, occurred here. If the door at this rear entrance to the 
building had not been shut the death record would have been 
small in comparison with what it is. 

"Besides being shut, the door at the rear entrance was 
reported to open inward,, which should not be the case with 
the doors in school buildings. Such doors should open out- 
ward, and, moreover, they should open automatically when the 
gong for the fire drill sounds." 

Said the Boston Globe : 
"So many illustrations recently have been afforded of the 
speedy and safe exodus of large numbers of children from 
school buildings on occasions of fire drill and even when actual 
danger was thought to be threatened, that it is all the more 
shocking to learn of the terrible loss of life in a fire which de- 
stroyed a school building in a suburb of Cleveland. 

"It is reported that only two exits were available and that 
one of these was so difficult to open that it was practicallv use- 
less. With 400 children endeavoring under these circum- 



234 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

stances to escape from a building- that filled rapidly with 
smoke and flame, it requires little effort of the imagination to 
picture the fearful scene of death. Adults, under like condi- 
tions, would have been not less panic stricken. 

"The actual catastrophe can only be deplored, but every 
city and town in the country where children are gathered in 
schools may read in this startling story a solemn warning to 
make immediate examination of the means of exit from the 
buildings in case of fire or alarm and to take instant steps to 
provide facilities, where such are wanting, that will assure the 
safety of the children beyond any doubt or chance." 

The Boston Advertiser remarked : 

"The appalling death roll from the schoolhouse tragedy at 
Cleveland may have a serious warning for many New England 
communities. The present state law does give to building 
inspectors the right to pass on plans for public school struc- 
tures, throughout Massachusetts ; and it is to be assumed that 
proper means of egress are maintained in all. 

More Care Needed. 

"But it was supposed that the Collinwood schoolhouse was 
supplied with proper exits, yet one became impassable through 
the panic of the children. The "fire drill" is a recognized insti- 
tution in most Massachusetts schools. But the real test of 
such drills comes only when the teachers and pupils, as a rule, 
are unprepared for it. 

"If the Collinwood tragedy has no other effect it would 
make teachers and principals more careful than ever before 
to make sure that no panic, however sudden and unexpected, 
shall be able to override the habits taught by constant repeti- 
tion of the fire drill." 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 235 

The Columbus Dispatch said : 

"The entire state has been shocked by the terrible disaster 
in the public school building at Collinwood, a suburb of Cleve- 
land — a disaster which, in cost of human life, threatens to 
equal if not surpass that in the Boyertown (Pa.) opera house, 
a few weeks since. It is the old story of fire, panic, a crush of 
humanity at inadequate exits and — death in its most hideous 
form. There w-as help in abundance just outside, but it was of 
no avail against locked and blockaded doors, and the result 
was anguish unspeakable, on the part of parents, friends and 
all others of humane instincts." 

Investigation's Aid. 

"The disaster was investigated and all the facts made 
known, as far as they could be secured from those who knew 
and those who can only guess. For the children who are dead 
and the parents who are broken hearted, it was all in vain. 
Will it also be in vain for others wdio are similarly imperiled? 
One certain result the calamity should produce : The enact- 
ment of the bill pending in the legislature, making the fire drill 
compulsory in all schools in which there are fifty or more 
pupils." 

The Bufifalo Enquirer said : 

"Another lesson which should not go unheeded by the 
authorities of the danger to which many of the school children 
of the country are daily subjected, comes from Collinwood, 
wdiere occurred the awful holocaust by which more than a 
hundred innocent lives were blotted out and scores of families 
plunged into deepest mourning. 

"That so little care is exercised by the authorities in the 
construction and maintenance of school buildings is a serious 



236 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

wrong and a disgrace to a country which claims to be law 
abiding and sympathetic in its tendencies. 

Young in Peril. 

"There are thousands of structures in this country in which 
the young are being educated to tal>:e their places in the busy 
world of men and women, equally dangerous as the building in 
Ohio where such a terrible sacrifice to official neglect and care- 
lessness of the law's enforcement, was demanded. 

"Every possible safeguard should be thrown about the lit- 
tle ones whose lives are so precious to us, but whose protection 
from similar conditions as those said to have attached to the 
Collinwood building, we are too careless to ensure." 

The Boston Herald commented : 

"The terrible destruction of child life in Cleveland's sub- 
urb, owing to fire in a school building, seemingly constructed 
so as to bring about a maximum of disaster in case of fire and 
panic, will be an object lesson for many other communities 
which are courting like horror. There cannot be too much at- 
tention given to the construction of school buildings, the 
number and situation of exits, and provision for easy egress." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

MODEL SCHOOL HOUSE. 

PLANS SAID TO SHOW HOW SCHOLARS COULD 
ESCAPE EASILY. 

Impelled by the Collinwood school horror, John P. Brophy, 
vice president and general superintendent of the Cleveland 
Automatic Machine Company, a thorough mechanic and prac- 
tical man in every way has evolved a new design for a school- 
house, which he thinks will provide a building as safe in case 
of fire as it could be made and which at the same time will 
make provision for the comfort and health of pupils and 
teachers. 

He has designed a square building, with a light well in the 
center and towers on each corner. 

Stairs Regularly Used. 

The stairways in these towers are used regularly by the 
scholars to reach the rooms close to each tower; that is, if 
there were even five stories, all the scholars in the rooms in 
each corner of the building, could pass into the towers closest, 
to these rooms. On the inside of light well "I" are stairways 
"G," leading from the top to the bottom of the building, to 
be used as fire escapes or to pass from one floor, across the 
court below, to the room on opposite side. To pass from room 
4 to room 1 use the stairway "G" to the ground floor, passing 
through the court and us.e stairway "G" on the opposite side 
to room L 

On each floor there is a hallway "H" around the inner wall, 
or lightwell ; "AA" are cloakrooms and "BB" toilet rooms, 



238 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 



located on each floor. The walls surrounding cloak and toilet 
rooms would be brick, reaching up through all floors. 

Each floor is only a large gallery, and the stairways down 




THE MODEL SCHOOL. 



the towers are not winding, but straight. Also all doors on 
the inside of building swing both ways, so there would be no 
danger in case of panic from doors being locked. On the 
wide stairways passing down towers "D" there would be a 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 239 

center double rail and one on each side, avoiding chance of 
scholars stumbling and falling in rushing down suddenly. 

The furnaces would be at "F" in center of court below, and 
reached from the lower floor by stairway. From the outside 
stairway "I\r' leads to entiance "L" on both sides a passage- 
way for fuel and supplies underneath building. 

To Eliminate Trouble. 

"Supposing," said Brophy, "a fire started in any of the 
rooms, say room 4, five stories high, all that is necessary for 
the teacher to do is to have the children move around through 
doors to 3 and 2, finally leading to 1. We all know that if a 
fire started in room 4, no matter how serious it might be, it 
would take considerable time before it would reach either 
room 1, 2 or 3, and especially 1, and as all the floors are one 
vast gallery, there is no chance of the scholars being caught, 
as they were at Collinwood. By having four entrances to 
this school with say, 1,000 children, there would be 250 
scholars passing in and out of each tower. This, without 
question, would eliminate trouble from a vast army of children 
passing out of one or two entrances. 

"Also, there will be better ventilation in this style of build- 
ing. I am satisfied that this design of school would obviate 
all trouble from fire ; would be heated more satisfactorily ; 
have better air and light ; and no possible chance of a repeti- 
tion of that which occurred at Collinwood a few days ago." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

"LEST WE FORGET!" 

RECONSTRUCT YOUR SCHOOLS XOW THAT SLMI- 
LAR DISASTERS MAY NOT HAPPEN. 

"Lest we forget!" The Collinwood fire is now of the past. 
To the stricken homes it is still fresh. But is the terrible dis- 
aster still strong in the minds of those who were not directlv 
affected by it? 

The entire nation, yes the whole world, was shocked and 
horrified at the awful holocaust. It was the deaths of little 
and innocent children that made the disaster so terrible. It is 
bad enough when such calamities visit adults, but when the 
hand of death touches the young and innocent there is an 
additional feeling of horror. 

Left Home Happy. 

With the early morning 172 little ones, fresh and rosy 
wended their w^ay to the school house, the school that we were 
supposed to see was safely constructed, the building which 
proved to be only a fire trap. 

It was not of their doing. They were not voluntary visitors 
at the school. It was at our instigation that these little 
children went to the building where they met their death. 
They knew nothing of the dangers, but put their trust in the 
older ones who were responsible for them. 

Hardly had their morning prayers to the Father who does 
not let a sparrow fall but that he knows, when the cry of "fire! 
fire !" rang through the building. The children rushed out 
into the halls and there seeing the smoke and llames became 
panic stricken and ran pell mell down the stairway. One tiny 




EDWIN, HULDA AND FRED SWANSON. 
hildren of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Swanson, 597 Adams Street Fred wanted to go with his mother 
to the city on the morning of the fire. They were very affectionate children and 
fond of school. Their ages were 12, 11 and 8 respectively. 




RUDOLPH AND CAROLINE KERN. 

hildren of Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Kern, 6212 Arcade Street. They both perished in the Col- 
linvvood school disaster. They were 12 and 10 years old respectively. 




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THE STORY OF THE FIRE 257 

foot slipped, one child fell. Those from behind pushed over 
and fell on top until there were more than a hundred lying 
in a heap, crushed in so tightly they could not be moved. 

Soon the awful flames spread through the rooms and the 
hallways. The hot breath scorched the tiny faces and burned 
the hair as the mothers and fathers of the little ones looked on 
in horror, unable to do anything to help the suffering children. 
Tiny hands were stretched out for aid, but the aid did not 
come. The flames withered the little hands which fell limp at 
the owner's sides and burned to a crisp. 

One Awful Cry. 

There was one, awful, terrifying cry as the hot breath of 
the flames blasted out the lives of those children piled high in 
a terrible crush. Then all was still. The little ones had re- 
turned to Him who knows all, who watches all. 

There was a hush fell on the crowd of watchers. The 
calamity was too awful to realize. Parents and friends were 
numbed by the staggering blow. Suddenly an aged man 
dropped on his knees and prayed : 

"Oh God, what have we done to deserve this." 

Women began to realize that they would see their little ones 
no more. Some wept. Some cried out to Heaven to end their 
misery. Others sobbed hysterically and yet others stood dry 
eyed and silent, the awful grief rending their hearts. Many 
were there that fainted and had to be carried to their homes. 

Then the flames died down. Through the rift of smoke 
that poured out of the building there could be seen through 
the back door a charred heap that a few minutes before had 
been laughing, happy children. 

Arms were twisted and broken or burned off all together. 



258 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

Faces of many were blackened and burned beyond possibifity 
of recognition. It was a steaming, smoking mass. 

Then began the task of taking out the bodies. One after 
the other the twisted, tortured bodies were taken from the 
building. They were hurried in the ambulances to the Lake 
Shore temporary morgue, where soon began the heart rending 
work of the parents in searching among the bodies for their 
dead. 

Funerals Held. 

At last they were found, all but a few. The funerals were 
held and the bodies lowered into their graves. The benedic- 
tion was pronounced. It was over. Left only was the bitter 
memory of sons and daughters, of sisters and brothers lost. 

In the bereft homes which in so short a time were left 
childless, or where one or two of the little ones had been 
taken away, leaving an emptiness which can never be filled, 
there is no forgetting. Throughout the long, long years to 
come, the sting of bitterness and sorrow will remain in these 
homes. * Fathers and mothers who lost all that made life 
worth while, there is no necessity of reminding them not to 
forget. They will carry their burden to the grave. 

It is to others that there is need of warning. There remains 
a duty for all of us to other children. These childless mothers 
are bereft. We can not return their children to them. Only 
the Infinite One is powerful to give them any measure of com- 
fort in their great sorrow. We sympathize, but we can not 
aid. 

We can prevent other such horrors, however. We can build 
our schools in such a way that there will be no danger of simi- 
lar disasters, which may result in making more homes child- 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 259 

less, which may mean that more children must be sacrificed. 

Remember your own little ones who are in school, lest the 
like befall them. 

Money should not be spared in such a cause. We have a 
sacred trust placed in us. We have a duty to perform. Meas- 
ures have been adopted to make schools more safe. Do not 
rest until this shall have been accomplished. Let there be no 
half way measures. See to it that these improvements in the 
schools are pushed at the utmost rapidity and that they be 
executed so as to make the schools perfectly safe. 

This is one of the objects of this book. We are too prone 
to forget soon after a great disaster. The Chicago theatre 
fire is but a memory. So also is the San Francisco disaster. 
Let the memory of the Collinwood disaster remain long. Let 
it remain until you have made your schools absolutely safe. 

Care should be taken in the homes also to guard against 
fire. Wherever there are little ones there is always danger 
and safeguards should be thrown around them in every in- 
stance. Safeguards should be thrown out beforehand as pre- 
A-entives and not afterwards when the disaster is over. 

It behooves us all both at the school and in the home to 
take warning, to keep the terrible Collinwood disaster in 
mind and plan for the future lest we forget and the like befall 
our own dear ones. 



260 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 



OUR LITTLE BOY BLUE. 

The little toy dog is covered with dust, 

But sturdy and stanch he stands ; 
And the little toy soldier is red with rust, 

And his musket molds in his hands. 
Time was, when the little toy dog was new, 

And the soldier was passing fair, 
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue 

Kissed them and put them there. 

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said, 

"And don't you make any noise !" 
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed, 

He dreamt of the pretty toys. 
And as he was dreaming, an angel song 

Awakened our Little Boy Blue — 
Oh, the years are many, the years are long. 

But the little toy friends are true. 

Aye, faithful to Little Boy Blue, they stand. 

Each in the same old place, 
Awaiting the touch of a little hand, 

The smile of a little face. 
And they wonder, as waiting these long years through 

In the dust of that little chair. 
What has become of our Little Boy Blue 

Since he kissed them, and put them there. 

— Eugene Field. 




I wonder when he's coming ' 



262 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 



THE LONG SILENCK 
By Edmund Vance Cooke. 

There are sorrowful words when the soldier falls 

From out of the firing line; 
There are fitting words when the Long Watch calls 

To the sailor out on the brine. 
But what are the words which a man may speak, 

Which are other than vainest breath, 
In silence of these — the little and weak — 

Who have played the game with Death. 

For Horror has hidden her eyes in fright, 

And Terror has stopped her ears. 
And Solace stands dumb at the ghastly sight, 

And her only words are tears. 
For what is the form which Pity may own 

In a pitiless hour like this, 
When these mothers are sitting alone — alone. 

With their babies they may not kiss. 

Oh, what to them is the sounding word. 

And what is the poet's page? 
And what all the wisdom written and heard 

By prophet and priest and sage? 
They are dust and dross, they are straw and chaff; 

Can they lighten the sightless eye? 
Can they bring back one little lightsome laugh. 

Or one little wistful cry? 

And who would mock a motherly grief 

By telling her Death is rest? 
And who would rack her stricken belief 

By asserting that God knows best? 
For bone of her bone and flesh of her heart 

Is the form which lies unheeding. 
And God himself may not tear them apart 

And see that there be no bleeding. 

We can only reach our hands, as prayers, 

To the hands which blindly grope; 
We can only mingle our tears with theirs. 

For in grief alone is hope. 
And we clasp our own little loves, unclaimed 

By the shadow of dark distress. 
And blush that we are not more ashamed 

Of our kisses of thankfulness. 



« 



CHAPTER XXV. 
LIST OF DEAD 

NAMES OF THOSE WHO MET DEATH IN THE COL- 
LINWOOD FIRE. 

ADAMS, IBA, aged 10, No. 390 Second street. 
BALDWIN, LAURETTA, aged 14, Sackett. 
BALDWIN, ALBERT, aged 12, No. 154 Park avenue. 
BELL, CLAYTON, aged 14, Np. 5310 McClure. 
BLUHM, GEORGE, aged 14, No. 5714 Elsinor. 
BURROWS, MARY, aged 12, No. 4907 Charles. 
BURROWS, ARMELIA, aged 11, No. 423 Park. 
BUSCHMAN, ROSE, aged 9, No. 5414 Lake. 
BUSCHMAN, ALMA, aged 11, No. 5414 Lake. 
BRAVO, FLORA, aged 9, No. 5422 Elsinore. 
CERWANA, MARGARET, aged 12, Store street. 
CLARKE, DALE, aged 8, No. 5812 Arcade. 
CLAYTON, FLORENCE, aged 8, No. 5816 Arcade. 
CUNNINGHAM, MILDRED, aged 12, No. 5118 Arcade. 
CENTNER, LESTER, aged 8, No. 512 Collamer. 
CARLSON, NELLIE, aged 13, No. 4907 Fulton. 
DEPNER, MEDA, aged 10, No. 4605 Fulton. 
DEPNER, ARNOLD, aged 9, No. 4605 Fulton. 
DRESCIK. MATILDA, aged 9, No. 389 Fourth. 
DRESCIK, MARY, aged 10, No. 309 Fourth. 
DAVIS, IRENE, aged 15, No. 4615 Westropp. 
DAY, PERCY, aged 11, No. 6202 Arcade. 
DORN, GRETCHEN, aged 10, No. 389 Park. 
DUFFY, KATHERINE, aged 13, No. 17 Lake. 
EICHELBERGER, ALBERT, aged 6, No. 5322 McClure. 



264 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

ENALA, FLORENCE, aged 9, No. 6203 Forrest. 
EVALD, FLORENCE, aged 9, No. 6203 Forest street. 
FINGLEMAN, LUCY, aged 8, No. 387 Fourth street. 
FISKE, MISS GRACE, aged 26, No. 10522 Orville avenue 

N. E. 
GALOP, TONY, aged 13, No. 421 Oak. 
GOULD, ALBERT, aged 11, No. 5416 Maple. 
GOULD, RAYMOND, aged 11, No. 5406 Poplar. 
GILBERT, ALMA, aged 11, No. 4710 L. S. B. 
GERBIC, EMILY, aged 9, Sackett and 4th streets. 
GRESSHAUGE, MARY, aged 9, No. 5714 Forest. 
GLASSMEIR, CATHERINE, aged 12, No. 5309 McClure. 
HART, DOROTHY, aged 9, No. 4615 Fulton. 
HUNTER, HERBERT, aged 10, No. 253 Collamer. 
HOEFERLE, LENA, aged 7, No. 5434 Elsinore 
HENICKE, PETER, aged 13, No. 437 Deise. , 
HECKLER, EDNA, aged 13, No. 4908 Westropp. 
HIRTER, EDA, aged 8, No. 447 Collamer. 
HIRTER, HELENA, aged 13, No. 447 Collamer. 
HIRTER, WALTER, aged 15, No. 447 Collamer. 
HOOK, WILFORD, aged 8, No. 5908 Arcade. 
HUMMEL, ESTHER, aged 15, No. 4316 Fulton street. 
INTCHAR, FRANCIS, aged 9, No. 426 Spruce street. 
JANKE, EMMA, aged 7, No. 434 Cedar. 
JUPUDIZA, MARY, aged 11, No. 5619 Sackett street. 
KERN. CAROLINE, aged 10, No. 6212 Arcade. 
KERN, RUDOLPH, aged 12, No. 6212 Arcade street. . 
KERN, ANNA, aged 8, No. 58 Elsinore street. 
KONOWSKI, WILLIAM, aged 12, No. 6215 Arcade. 
KELLY, WALTER, aged 7. Dow cottage, Beulah Park. 
KELLY, RICHARD, aged 10, Dow cottage, Beulah Park. 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 265 

KEHL, EDWARD, aged 10, No. 5407 Poplar. 
KUJAT, HENRY, aged 13, No. 381 Second street. 
KAPUDJYA, FANNIE, aged 9, No. 5619 Sackett. 
KAPUDJYA, MARY, aged 11, No. 5619 Sackett. 
KLISHWISH, JOHN, aged 14, no 4819 Charles street. 
LANGES, LIZZIE, aged 14, No. 437 Deise street. 
LAMSON, ROSIE, aged 8, No. 5704 Elsinore street. 
LEIBINTZER, FERDINAND, aged 9, No. 435 Oak. 
LEONARD, ARTHUR, aged 10, No. 4221 iMontgomery. 
LEONARD, HERBERT, aged 11, No. 4221 Montgomery. 
LEONARD, LOUISE, aged-8. No. 4221 Montgomery. 
LODGE, HARRY, aged 11, No. 4910 Scott. 
LOWRY, CLARA, aged 13, Euclid Beach. 
MARKOSHOT, ELSIE, aged 11, No. 5814 Forrest. 
MAREA, MARY, aged 8, No. 4713 Charles street. 
MILLS, GLADYS, aged 12, Camp Lakewood. 
MARKOSHOT, EDWARD, aged 13, No. 5814 Forrest. 
MILLER, TRACE.Y, aged 11, Charles. 
MURPHY, LYDIA, 5814 Forrest. 
MYERT, EDDIE, aged 7, Lake. 

MARINSKI, KATHERINE, aged 7, No. 5807 Forrest. 
MTLRATH, HUGH, aged 14, No. 5318 Maple. 
NEWSBERRY, RUSSELL, aged 13, Fulton. 
NEUBAKER, PAUL, aged 7, No. 391, Second street. 
NEUBERT, JOHN, aged 10, Fifth and Forest streets. 
NEUBERT, OLGA, aged 12. Fifth and Forest streets. 
OBLAK, JOHN, aged 13, No. 424 Spruce street. 
OPELECK, JOSEPHINE, aged 12, Oak street. 
OPELECK, JOE, aged 10, Oak street. 
PARR, HARRY, aged 8, No. 218 Park avenue. 
PAUL, RUTH, aged 7. No. 5413 L. S. B. 
PAUL, FRED W., aged 13, No. 5413 L. S. B. 



266 THE STORY OF THE FIRE 

POLONSKI, VICTOR, aged 9, No. 447 Cedar street. 
POPOVOCI, JOHN, aged 13, No. 4709 Charles street. 
POPPEL, GRETCHEN, aged 7, No. 6401 Arcade. 
PARAL, FRANK, aged 9, No. 708 Elsinor. 
PHILLIS, JENNIE, aged 14, No. 5224 Poplar. 
PAHNER, EDNA, aged 13, No. 440 Park. 
PARRIT, MARY, aged 11, No. 5708 Elsinore. 
QUIRK, LOUIS, No. 5501 Sackett avenue. 
REHAN, ADAM, aged 12, No. 390 Second street. 
ROBINSON, WANETA, aged 7, No. 5078 Forest street. 
ROMMELFANGER, LILLIE,. aged 9, No. 324 Spruce. 
ROSTOCK, LILLIAN, aged 6, No. 5315 Lake. 
REEVES, HARVEY, aged 9, No. 4713 Scott. 
ROSCHINSKY, JOHN, aged 7, No. 445 Cedar. 
RUSH, DON, aged 13, No. 27 Arcade. 
ROBINSON, FERN, aged 12, No. 5078 Forrest. 
SAGER, MARY, aged 11, No. 16 Oak. 
SEGA, MARIA, aged 11, No. 421 Oak. 

SCIBIRITZER, FERDINAND, aged 9, No. 435 Oak street. 
SCHOLL, EDWARD, aged 10, No. 4816 Westropp. 
SOUTHWELL, EUGENE, aged 12, No. 346 Park. 
SCHMITT, MILDRED, aged 10, Lake Shore boulevard. 
SKI EL, PAULINE, aged 13, No. 438 Coker street. 
SODONA, JULIUS, aged 8, No. 379 Fourth. 
SCHUBERT, VERNA, aged 12, No. 5411 Lake. 
SHERMAN, NORRIS, aged 10, No. 341 Park. 
SHEPARD, MORRIS, aged 14, No. 54 Elsinore. 
SCHAFFER. GEORGE, aged 9, Groveland Club. 
SIGLER, MABEL, aged 10. No. 6012 Arcade. 
SKELLY, Bert, aged 8, Sackett. 



I 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 267 

SKELLY, MADGE, aged 12, Sackett. 
SMITH, WILLIE, aged 9, No. 6124 Arcade. 
STEWART, ELLA S., aged 14, No. 5713 Depew. 
SPRUNG, ELVIN, aged 7, No. 382 Collamer. 
SW^ANSON, FRED, aged 7, Fulton and Adams. 
SW ANSON, EDWARD, aged 12, Fulton and Adams. 
SWANSON, HULDA, aged 13, No. 597 Adams street. 
SHEPARD, NORMAN, aged 11, No. 5708 Arcade. • 
SANDERSON, HAROLD, aged 9, No. 438 Park. 
SANDERSON, GLEN, aged 12, No. 438 Park. 
SAMSON, MARY, aged 9, No. 5704 Elsinore. 
SAMSON, TONY, No. 5704 Elsinore. 
SCHULTZ, HENRY, aged 9, No. 4623 Westropp. 
TURNER, JAAIES, aged 14, No. 436 Collamer. 
TURNER, NORxMAN, aged 10, No. 436 Collamer. 
TURNER, MAX, aged 6, No. 436 Collamer. 
THOAIPSON, TOMMY, aged 7, No. 405 Collamer. 
THOMPSON, NILS, aged 9, No. 405 Collamer. 
URBANCIE, JOSEPHINE ,aged 7, No. 430 Spruce street. 
WELLS, WORTHINGTON, aged 12, No. 442 Park avenue. 
WEICHERT, HENRY, aged 11, No. 382 Second. 
WENDORF, CLARA, aged 12, No. 4323 Westropp. 
WALDEN, LUELLA, No. 5450 Elsinore. 
WEILER, MISS KATHERINE, No. 2217 E. 81st street. 
WELLICK, ANNA, aged 11, No. 433 Spruce. 
WACHHAUS, EVA, aged 7, No. 5608 Elsinore. 
WACHHAUS, IDA, aged 8, No. 5608 Elsinor. 
WACHHAUS, MARY, aged 9, No. 5608 Elsinore. 
WICKER, ROBERT, aged 12, 389 Third. 
WIDMAR, S., aged 10, 5217 Lake boulevard. 
WIDMAR. ANNA, aged 12, No. 5217 Lake Shore Boulevard. 



268 



THE STORY OF THE FIRE 



WOODHOUSE, ANNIE, aged 12, Lake. 
WOODRICK, META, aged 11, No. 4605 Fulton. 
WOODRICK, ARNOLD, No. 4605 Fulton. 
ZUPAN, ^lARGUERITE, aged 11, Collins street. 
ZIMMERMAN, JOHN, aged 8, No. 3714 Sackett. 
ZIMMERMAN, LOUISE, aged 14, No. 5714 Sackett. 
ZINGLE^IAN, HENRY, aged 11. No. 3874 Fourth. 
ZINGLEMAN, LUCY, aged 8, No. 3874 Fourth. 







tP\?« 4 



School 
Room 



o 
a 



^fC-^ 













FIRST FLOOR COLLTNWOOD SCHOOL 
The Plans of the other floors arc modelled on the same design. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

SAN FRANCISCO DISASTER 

SCENES OF HORROR FOLLOW TERRIFIC EARTH- 
QUAKE SHOCK. 

In the San Francisco disaster, April 18, 1906, destruction 
fell in almost every conceivable form. ' The heaving earth 
shattered the walls of its towering structures and brought 
them crashing down on the helpless people within. Com- 
bustion spread to the ruins and the fire fiend smote the wreck- 
ed city with merciless fury. Absence of water, famine and 
pestilence each lent their portion to the dismal tragedy. Mad- 
dened men and women of the lowest strata of society battled 
in the scarred and smoking ruins for plunder, while soldiers 
shot down the ghouls and looters. 

Such a scene can only be imagined after a midnight session 
with Dante. It was Inferno apothesized. 

It followed a night of restful calm — a night during which 
the fairy city of the Golden Gate throbbed with the joy of 
life. Its palatial theatres were crowded. Its bright lights 
flashed from the highlands over the bay and down the rugged 
passage to the western sea. 

Shock Of Five Minutes. 

Morning brought the transformation just after rosy dawn 
awakened early risers to their toil — and death. 

The first shock, which lasted almost five minutes, and which 
started the wrecking of the city, came just at daybreak, and 
through a day of terror the people fought, aided by soldiers, 
to check the following flames. At midnight the fire still burn- 
ed fiercely in every direction, checked on two sides by the 



270 OTHER DISASTERS 

water of the bay, and held back from the other two and from 
the main residence districts by the half gale that had fanned 
its fury all day. 

The fireman and the 4,000 soldiers who were fighting the 
frames and rescuing the dead and injured, labored all day with- 
out water, for the earthquake snapped the water mains and 
left the city helpless. 

Dynamite and powder were the only agencies left with 
which to battle. Many of the finest buildings in the city were 
leveled to the ground by terrific charges of explosives in the 
hopeless efifort to stay the horror of fire. In this work heioic 
soldiers, policemen, and firemen were maimed or killed out- 
right. 

Flames Furnish Only Light. 

With nightfall there was no light, except the glare of the 
flames — for the gas plants were blown up or shut ofif for pur- 
poses of safety and the earthquake destroyed the machinery in 
the electric light works. 

Nearly a quarter of the population of the city either fled to 
the hills and other supposed points of greater safety — or were 
homeless in the streets. 

Martial law was proclaimed, nearly 4,000 soldiers patrolling 
the streets with orders to shoot all vandals. 

While the center of the earthquake was in San Francisco, 
the destruction and death covered the coast for miles, and the 
scenes in San Francisco were duplicated on a smaller scale in 
half a dozen of the nearer cities. 

As night descended upon the city of death and destruction 
the fact that there were no lights brought on fresh terror, 



OTHER DISASTERS 271 

which was accentuated by the third sharp shock, which came 
just before dark. 

As the flames spread into the residence districts people left 
their homes and fled to the parks and squares. 

The city resembled one vast shambles with the red glare of 
the fire throwing weird shadows across the worn and panic- 
stricken faces of the homeless, wandering the streets or sleep- 
ing on piles of mattresses and clothing in the parks and on the 
sidewalks in those districts not yet reached by the fire. 

Leave Dead To Burn. 

Through all the streets automobiles and express wagons 
hurried, carrying the dead and injured to the morgues and the 
hospitals. At the morgue, in the hall of justice, scores of bod- 
ies were on the slabs. The flames rapidly approached this 
building and the work of removing the bodies to Jackson 
square, opposite, began. While the soldiers and police were 
carrying the dead to what appeared safe places, a shower of 
bricks from a building dynamited to check the progress of the 
sweeping flames injured many of the workmen and sent soldier 
after soldier hurrying to the hospital. The work of removing 
the bodies stopped and the remainder of the dead were left to 
possible cremation in the morgue. 

Offers of relief poured in all day — from every direction — 
but the city was isolated from the world except by telegraph. 
The railway tracks for miles were destroyed, twisted and con- 
torted. In places the tracks sunk ten feet, in other places 
they were torn to pieces. 

It was days before the city could communicate with its sis- 
ter cities by railway, and appeals for food and fresh water to be 
sent by steamers from coast points were sent out. 



272 OTHER DISASTERS 

It was many aays before the complete story of the ruin 
wrought by the double calamity of earthquake and fire that 
visited San Francisco was realized and there will still remain 
untold countless tales of pitiful tragedy. The exact loss of life 
will never be known as hundreds of unfortunates were incin- 
erated in the flames which made the rescue of those buried 
under toppling steeples and falling walls impossible. 

The first shock was at 5 :13, and it came without warning 
save a slight reverberating roar, the motion of the earth being 
from east to west. The upheaval was gradual, and for a few 
seconds it seemed as if the entire city was being lifted slowly 
upward, and then, after perhaps five seconds of the sickening 
rising sensation the shock increased in violence. 

Chimneys began to fall, the houses trembled violently, 
swayed, and some fell with crashes. 

In an instant the panic began. People driven from their 
beds ran unclothed into the streets, screaming, crying, and 
praying. They screamed to each other, begging for help and 
asking each other what had happened. 

Others fled in terror to the basement — others fainted or fell 
terrorized in their own homes. They were safer than those 
who rushed into the streets at the first awakening — for these 
were struck down by showers of falling brick. 

Buildings Sway and Tumble. 

Buildings tottered on their foundations. Some rose and fell, 
and, when falling, the fronts or sides burst out as if from ex- 
plosions, hurling tons of brick, mortar, and timbers into the 
street. Great rents opened in the ground. 

Those who remained indoors generally escaped death or in- 



OTHER DISASTERS 273 

jury, except in cases where the entire buildings collapsed, al- 
though hundreds were hurt by falling plaster, pictures, or fly- 
ing glass. It was said that there were more or less injured 
persons in every family in the city. 

Hardly were the people of the hill district out of their houses 
when the dawn to the east was lit up in a dozen places by fires 
which had started in the business district below. The first of 
these came with a sheet of fire which burst out somewhere in 
the warehouse district, near the water front. 

Men from all over the upper part of town streamed down the 
hills to help. There were no cars running, and none could, for 
the slots of the cable cars and the very tracks were bent and 
tossed with the upheavals of the ground. 

The fire department responded. Chief Sullivan of the fire 
department was dead, killed by the cupola of the California 
hotel, which had fallen through the roof of the fire house 
where he was sleeping. His assistant rang in a general alarm. 

The firemen, making for the nearest points, got their horses 
out. There was one rush of water and the flow stopped. 

The great water main which carries the chief water supply 
of San Francisco, ran through the ruined district. It had been 
broken, and the useless water was spurting up through the 
ruins in a dozen places. 

The firemen stood helpless while fire after fire started in 
the ruined houses. Alost of these seem to have been caused 
by the ignition of gas from the gas mains, which were also 
broken. The flames would rush up with astonishing sudden- 
ness, and then smolder in the slowly burning redwood of 
which three quarters of San Francisco was built. 

When day came the smoke hung over all the buusiness part 
of the city. Farther out fires were going in Hayes Valley, a 



274 OTHER DISASTERS 

middle class resident district, and in the old mission part of 
the city. 

How many buildings went down in these two shocks and 
how many people were killed will never be known. The world 
knows only the larger items of the catastrophe. Probably 
scores of little houses went down, burying four or five people 
in each. These little holocausts and some of the greater ones 
happened in an area about two blocks wide which runs south 
of ^Market street, the main thoroughfare, east to the water 
front. 

It was a district of little lodging houses inhabited mainly by 
sailors, interspersed with business houses. There seems to 
have been another center of disturbance in the mission district, 
nmch faither west, and there was heavy loss of life at that 
point. 

The Kingsley house, a crazy, cheap old hotel on Seventh 
street, between Mission and Howard, collapsed at the first 
shock. Seventy-five people were buried in the ruins. The 
firemen pulled some of them out alive, but most of them were 
left under the ruins. 

Columns Of Fire Sweep Everywhere. 

The great columns of fire rushed down streets, turned cor- 
ners, roared through a cross street, and then, leaping entire 
squares or blocks, rushed onwards to the wooden portion of 
the town nearer the river. 

The Grand Opera House, wherein the preceding night Car- 
uso sang with the Metropolitan Grand Opera Company in the 
opening opera of the engagement, was attacked, and ail the 
expensive scenery and costumes were destroyed with vhe 
building. 



1 



OTHER DISASTERS 275 

In the middle of the morning the whole Oakland fire depart- 
ment, answering a call from San Francisco, came over on a 
special ferry boat. By that time there was a wall of fire be- 
tween the water front and the main business district. They 
took to the wharves and marched far to the south before they 
found a way through the flames, and reached the San Fran- 
cisco firemen, who were still working without water. 

Dynamite Fails To Stop Flames. 

The firemen dynamited a four story building housing rail- 
road offices, which lay between the Palace and the Examiner 
building. That did not stop it. Just before noon the men in 
the newspaper offices who had reported for duty and were 
hanging on to the last, left the building. 

The east wind gave another spurt, and the fire caught the 
Call building. Hardly were these burning and beyond hope 
before the wind switched to its normal southwest direction 
and the Chronicle building, northward across the street caught 
fire. When this happened all the newspaper offices had been 
transferred to the Chronicle building, whose basement presses 
had somehow lasted through, and they were preparing to issue 
all the papers from the one office. Driven out of this last 
.stand, they took to the hills or tried to get out to Oakland and 
a wire. 

Rich Not Spared. 

In addition to the main conflagration half a dozen others 
were raging, and seemed to be uniting into one great fire which 
would sweep clean all the low lying parts of the city. 

The hills district, where the well to do residents lived, was 
not spared, and there were ten or twelve small fires there. In 
this part of town there was some water from the hill reser- 



276 OTHER DISASTERS 

voirs, and this, together with the slow l>urning quality of the 
redwood of which they were mostly built, seems to have 
saved these parts of the town, temporarily at least. 

Further down, in the flats of the Hayes valley, the fire ran 
fast through a thickly inhabited district of working people. 
In the midst of this district was St. Ignatius' church, the larg- 
est church on the Pacific coast. This caught early, and went 
up in a sheet of fire. Block after block in this part went up. 

The whole water front, except the fine big ferry building of 
the Southern Pacific company, burned to the ground, and this 
fire extended to the warehouse district, taking the stores of the 
Pacific trade. 

Another center of flame was California street, the financial 
district. 

Mechanics' Pavilion A Morgue. 

In less than two hours more than 100 bodies taken from the 
ruins of the fallen buildings had been laid out on the floor. 
The dead were brought from every part of the city in every 
sort of vehicle. Inside the pavilion a corps of doctors and 
volunteer nurses labored with the injured brought in with the 
dead. 

Tn the first hour of the disaster many must have been killed 
by live wires. Almost all the electric light wires fell across 
the streets and the work they did was proved b}' the presence 
at the temporary morgue of many corpses on whom the only 
mark was a burn about the hands or feet. This lasted for 
only an hour. After that the electric power was cut ofif. 

When the city awoke to a full realization of the fate that 
had befallen it and the fight to escape death became unani- 
mous, thousands made for the banks, wdiere their savings were 



« 



OTHER DISASTERS 277 

deposited. Long before the usual hour of opening, hundreds 
of the more daring were clamoring around the bank doors. 

But the banks did not open. To have opened meant the 
certainty of runs that would have sent many of them to the 
wall. Thousands left the city practically penniless, not know- 
ing whether their savings would be swept away with their 
homes and business. 

The food problem was already troubling the authorities. 
Mayor Schmitz had ordered grocers and dairymen and bakers 
to hold their supplies at the disposition of the authorities. 
The food was distributed equally, rich and poor sharing alike. 

Scenes Of Horror In Ruined City. 

Of the scenes which marked the transformation of this, the 
gayest, most careless city on the continent, into a wreck and a 
hell it is harder to write. The day started with a blind general 
panic. People woke with a start to find themselves flounder- 
ing on the floor. 

In such an earthquake as this it is the human instinct to 
get out of doors, away from falling walls. They stumbled 
across the floors of their heaving houses to find that even the 
good earth upon which they placed their reliance was swaying 
and rising and falling, so that the sidewalks cracked and great 
rents opened in the ground. 

The three minutes which followed were an eternity of ter- 
ror. At least two people died of pure fright in that three min- 
utes when there seemed no help in earth or heaven. 

There was a roar in the air like a great burst of thunder, and 
from all about came the crash of falling walls. It died down 
at last, leaving the earth quaking and quivering like jelly. 

Men would run forward, stop as another shock, which might 



278 OTHER DISASTERS 

be greater any moment, seemed to take the earth from under 
their feet, and throw themselves face downward on the ground 
in a perfect agony of fear. It seemed to be two or three min- 
utes after the great shock was over before people found their 
voices. 

There followed the screaming of women, beside themselves 
with terror and the cries of men. With one impulse, people 
made for the parks, as far as possible from falling walls. The 
parks speedily became packed with people in their night 
clothes, who screamed and moaned at the little shocks which 
followed every few minutes. 

Chinese In Delirium Of Fright. 

On Portsmouth square the panic was beyond description. 
This, the old plaza, about which the early city was built, was 
bordered by Chinatown, by Italian district, and by the Barbary 
coast, a lower tenderloin. A spur of the quake ran up the hill 
upon which Chinatown was situated and shook down part 
of the crazy little buildings on the southern edge. It tore 
down, too, some of the Italian tenements. The rush to Ports- 
mouth Square went on almost unchecked by the police, who 
had more business elsewhere. 

The Chinese came out of the underground burrows like rats 
and tumbled into the square, beating such gongs and playing 
such noise instruments as they had snatched up. They were 
met on the other side by the refugees of the Italian quarter. 
The panic became a madness. 

At least two Chinamen were taken to the morgue dead of 
knife wounds, given for no other reason, it seems, than the 
madness of panic. 

There were 10,000 Chinese in the quarter, and there were 



OTHER DISASTERS 279 

thousands of Italians, Spaniaras and Mexicans on the other 
side. It seemed as though every one of these, together with 
the riffraff of the Barbary coast, made for that one block of 
open land. 

The two uncontrolled streams met in the center of the 
square and piled up on the edges. There they fought all the 
morning until some regulars restored order with their bayo- 
nets. 

Then, as the dawn broke and the lower city began to be 
overhung with the smoke of burning buildings, there came a 
back eddy. Cabmen, hackmen, drivers of express wagons and 
trucks, hired at enormous prices, began carting away from 
the lower city the valuables of the hotels, which saw their 
doom in the fires which were breaking out everywhere and the 
spurts of gas mains. 

Even the banks began to take out their bullion and securi- 
ties, and, under guard of half-dressed clerks, to send them to 
the hills, whence came today the salvation of San Francisco. 
One old night hawk cab, driven by a cabman white with ter- 
ror, carried more than a million dollars in currency and se- 
curities. 

Human Rats Begin Work. 

Men, pulling corpses or broken people from fallen buildings, 
stopped to curse these processions as they passed. Many times 
a line of wagon."? and cabs would run on to an impassible bar- 
rier of debris, where some building had fallen into the street, 
and would pile up until the guards cleared a way through the 
streets. 

And then the vandals formed and went to work. Routed out 
from the dens along: the wharves, tlie rats of the San Francisco 



280 OTHER DISASTERS 

water front, the drifters who have reached tlie back eddy of 
European civiHzation. crawled out and began to plunder. 

Early in the day a policeman caught one of these men creep- 
ing through the window of a small bank on ^Montgomery 
street and shot him dead. But the police were keeping fire 
lines, beating back overzealous rescuers from the fallen houses 
and the burning blocks, and for a time these men plundered at 
will. 

Troops Ordered To Kill Thieves. 

News of this development was carried early to Mayor 
Schmitz, and it was this as much as anything which deter- 
mined him when Gen. Funston came over on the double quick 
with the whole garrison of the Presidio to put the city under 
martial law. 

Orders were issued to the troops to shoot any one caught in 
the act of looting., and the same orders were issued to the 
First Regiment, National Guard, of California when they were 
mustered and called out later in the day. 

And all this time, and clear up until noon, the earth was 
shaking with little tremors, many of which brought down 
walls and chimneys. At each of these tremors, rescuers, and 
even the firemen, would stop for a moment, paralyzed. Ihe 8 
o'clock shock, the heaviest after the big one, drove even those 
who had determined to stay by the stricken city to look for a 
means of escape by water. 

Wild Rush For Ferries. 

There are only two ways out of San Francisco, one is by 
rail to the south and down the Santa Clara valley ; the other 
is by water to Oakland, the overland terminal. Most of the 
Californians, trying to get out of the quaking dangerous city, 



OTHER DISASTERS 281 

made by instinct for the ferry, since they knew that the shocks 
always travel heavily to the south, down the Santa Clara val- 
ley. 

As for the easterners, they had come by ferry and they 
started to get out by ferry. But when the half-dressed people, 
carrying the ridiculous bundles snatched up in time of panic, 
reached Montgomery street they found their way blocked by 
ten blocks of fire. 

They piled up on the edge of this district fighting with the 
police, who held them back and turned them again toward the 
hills. They must stay in the city. If it went, they went with 
it. 

The troops ended their last hope of getting out of town. So 
great had been the disorder that, as afternoon came on and the 
earth seemed to be quieting down, they enforced strict laws 
against movement. 

Troops Stop Run On Banks. 

This stopped a strange feature of the terrible disaster — a 
run on the banks by people who wanted to get out their money 
and go. All the morning lines of disheveled men had been 
standing in line on Montgomery and Sansome streets, ignoring 
the smoke and flying brands and beating at the doors. The 
troops dove these away ; and the banks went on with their 
work of getting out the valuables. 

There is an open park opposite the city hall. Here, in de- 
fault of a building, the board of supervisors met and formed, 
together with fifty substantial citizens whom they had gath- 
ered together, a committee of safety. 

The police and the troops, working admirably together, 
passed the word that the dead and injured should be brought 



282 OTHER DISASTERS 

to Mechanics' Pavilion, since the hospitals and morgue had be- 
come choked ; and toward that point, in the early forenoon, the 
drays, express wagons, and hacks impressed as temporary am- 
bulances, took their course. 

There were perhaps 400 injured people, many of them terri- 
bly mangled, laid out on the floor before noon. Nearly every 
physician in the city volunteered ; and they got together 
enough trained nurses to do the work. 

Vampires Shot Down. 

Fiends in human form, in whose bosom was no sympathy 
for the stricken, began soon after the shock, the unholy work 
of robbing the dead. In many cases these vampires were 
shot dead in their tracks by soldiers or policemen. 

A. J. Neve, manager of the great Owl drug store in San 
Francisco, barely escaped to Sacramento with his life. 

"The work of the villain — the vandal, the worse than mur- 
derer — was the thing that added rage to discouragement and 
despair," declared Mr. Neve. "Hundreds of women were 
crowded into the St. Francis Hotel, it being believed that it 
could withstand the flames. 

"The buildings burned on all sides of it and then it caught. 
The women were carried out and the villains cut off" their 
fingers and put them in their pockets to secure the diamond 
rings. 

Mob Lynches Two Miscreants. 

"Instant death to scores was the fate for vandalism," said 
Oliver Posey, Jr., a wealthy mining operator. "Not only did 
the soldiers execute summary justice on robbers, but citizens 
likewise took the law into their own hands. On the first 



OTHER DISASTERS 283 

afternoon in front of the Palace Hotel a crowd of workers in 
the ruins discovered a miscreant in the act of robbing a corpse 
of its jewels. Without delay he was seized, a rope procured, 
and he was immediately strung up to a beam which was left 
standing in the ruined entrance of the Palace Hotel. 

"No sooner had he been hoisted up and a hitch taken in the 
rope than one of his fellow criminals was captured. Stopping 
only to secure a few yards of hemp, a slip knot was quickly 
tied around his neck and the wretch was soon adorning the 
hotel entrance by the side of the other dastard." 

John Spencer, an employe of Ascot Park, also had much to 
say of the treatment of those caught in the act of rifling the 
dead of their jewels. 

"At Market and Third streets Wednesday," said ]\Ir. Spen- 
cer, "I saw a person who could not be called a man attempting 
to cut the fingers from the hand of a dead woman in order to 
secure the rings which adorned them. Three soldiers wit- 
nessed the deed at the same time and ordered the man to 
throw up his hands. Instead of obeying the command he 
drew a revolver from his pocket and began to fire at his pur- 
suers. 

"Without more ado, the trio of Uncle Sam's soldiers, re- 
enforced by half a dozen uniformed patrolmen, raised their 
rifles to their shoulders and fired. With the first shots the 
fleeing human vampire fell, and when the soldiers went to the 
body to throw it into an alley eleven bullets were found to 
have entered it." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE CHICAGO THEATRE HORROR. 

FLAMES SNUFF OUT LIVES OF NEARLY 600 PER- 
SONS IN FEW MINUTES. 

No disaster, by flood, volcano, wreck or convulsion of nature 
has in recent times aroused such horror as swept over the civ- 
ilized world when on December 30, 1903, a death-dealing blast 
of flame hurtled through the packed auditorium of the Iroquois 
theater, Chicago, causing the loss of nearly 600 lives of men, 
women and children, and injuries to unknown scores. 

Strong words pale and appear meaningless when used in 
describing the full enormity of this disaster, which has no 
recent parallel save in the outbreak of nature's irresistible 
forces. There have been greater losses of life by volcanoes, 
earthquakes and floods, but no fire horror of modern times has 
equaled this one, which in a brief half-hour turned a beautiful 
million-dollar theater into an oven piled high with corpses, 
some burned and mutilated and others almost unmarked in 
death. 

Shrieks Of Living. 

Coming, as it did, in the midst of a holiday season, when 
the second greatest city in the United States was reveling in 
the gaiety of Christmas week, this sudden transformation of a 
playhouse filled with a pleasure-seeking throng into an inferno 
filled with shrieking living and mutilated dead, came as a 
thunderbolt from a clear sky'. 

It was a typical holiday matinee crowd, composed mostly of 
women and children, with here and there a few men. The 



OTHER DISASTERS 285 

production was the gorgeous scenic extravanza "Mr. Blue- 
beard," with which the handsome new theater had been opened 
not a month before. "Don't fail to have the children see Mr. 
Bluebeard," was the advertisement spread broadcast through- 
out the city, and the children were there in force when the 
scorching sheet of flame leaped from the stage into the balcony 
and gallery where a thousand were packed. 

The building had been heralded abroad as a "fireproof struc- 
ture," with more than enough exits. Ushers and five men in 
city uniform were in the aisles. All was apparently safety, 
mirth and good cheer. 

Then came the transformation scene ! 

The auditorium and the stage were darkened for the popular 
song "The Pale Moonlight." Eight dashing chorus girls and 
eight stalwart men in showy costume strolled through the 
measures of the piece, bathed in a flood of dazzling light. Up 
in the scenes a stage electrician was directing the "spot-light" 
which threw the pale moonlight effect on the stage. 

Tiny Tongue Of Flame. 

Suddenly there was a startled cry. Far overhead where the 
"spot" was shooting forth its brilliant ray of concentrated 
light a tiny serpentine tongue of flame crept over the inside of 
the proscenium drape. It was an insignificant thing, yet the 
horrible possibilities it entailed flashed over all in an instant. 
A spark from the light had communicated to the rough edge 
of the heavy cloth drape. Like a flash it stole across the pros- 
cenium and high up into the gridiron above. 

Accustomed as they were to insignificant fire scares and 
trying ordeals that are seldom the lot of those who lead a less 
strenuous life, the people of the stage hurried silently to the 



286 OTHER DISASTERS 

task of stamping out the blaze. In the orchestra pit it could 
readily be seen that something was radically wrong, but the 
trained musicians played on. 

Members of the octette cast their eyes above and saw the 
tiny tongue of flame growing into a whirling maelstrom of 
fire. But it was a sight they had seen before. Surely some- 
thing would happen to extinguish it. America's newest and 
most modern fireproof playhouse was not going to disappear 
before an insignificant fire in the rigging loft. So they con- 
tinued to sway in sinuous steps to the rhythm of the throbbing 
orchestra. Their presence stilled the nervousness of the vast 
audience, which knew that something was wrong, but had no 
means of realizing what that something was. 

So the gorgeously attired men and dashing, voluptuous 
young women danced on. The throng feasted its eyes on the 
moving scene of life and color, little knowing that for them 
it was the last dance — the dance of death ! 

Death Danced. 

That dance was not the only one in progress. Far above 
the element of death danced from curtain to curtain. The fire 
fiend, red and glowing with exultation, snapping and crackling 
in anticipation of the feast before it, grew beyond all bounds. 
Glowing embers and blazing sparks — crumbs from its table — 
began to shower upon the merry dancers, and they fell back 
with blanched faces and trembling limbs. Eddie Foy rushed 
to the front of the stage to reassure the spectators, who now 
realized the peril at hand and rose in their seats struggling 
against the impulse to fly. Others joined the comedian in his 
plea for calmness. 

Suddenly their voices were drowned in a volley of sounds 



OTHER DISASTERS 287 

like the booming of great guns. The manila Hnes Ijy which 
the carloads of scenery in the loft above was suspended gave 
way before the fire like so much paper and the great wooden 
batons fell like thunder bolts upon the now deserted stage. 

Still the audience stood, terror bound. 

"Lower the fire curtain !" came a hoarse cry. 

Something shot down over the proscenium, then stopped be- 
fore the great opening was closed, leaving a yawning space of 
many feet beneath. With the dropping of the curtain a door 
in the rear had been opened by the performers, fleeing for their 
lives and battling to escape from the devouring element fast 
hemming the min on every side. The draft thus caused trans- 
formed the stage in one second from a dark, gloomy, smoke 
concealed scene of chaos into a seething volcano. With a 
great pufif the mass of flame swept out over the auditorium, a 
withering blast of death. Before it the vast throng broke and 
fled. 

Doors Jammed Tight. 

Doors, windows, hallways, fire escapes — all were jammed in 
a moment with struggling humanity, fighting for life. Some 
of the doors were jammed almost instantly so that no human 
power could make egress possible. Behind those in front 
pushed the frenzied mass of humanity, Chicago's elect, the 
wives and children of its most prosperous business men and 
the flower of local society, fighting like demons incarnate. 
Purses, wraps, costly furs were cast aside in that mad rush. 
]\Iothers were torn from their children, husbands from their 
wives. No hold, however strong, could last against that aw- 
ful, indescribable crush. Strong men who sought to the last 
to sustain their feminine companions were swept away like 



288 OTHER DISASTERS 

straws, thrown to the floor and trampled into unconsciousness 
in the twinkling of an eye. Women to whom the safety of 
their children was more than their own lives had their little 
ones torn from them and buried under the mighty sweep of 
humanity, moving onward by intuition rather than through 
exercise of thought to the various exits. They in turn were 
swept on before their wails died on their lips — some to safety, 
oth'Ts to an unspeakably horrible death. 

Exits Piled With Fallen. 

While some exits were jammed l)y fallen refugees so as to 
become useless, others refused to open. In the darkness that 
fell upon the doomed theater a struggle ensued such as was 
never pictured in the mind of Dante in his visions of Inferno. 
With prayers, curses and meaningless shrieks of terror all 
faced their fate like rats in a trap. The darkness was illumined 
by a fearful light that burst from the sea of flame pouring 
out from the proscenium, making Dore's representations of 
Inferno shrink into the commonplace. Like a horizontal vol- 
cano the furnace on the stage belched forth its blast of fire, 
smoke, gas and withering, blighting heat. Like a wa\e it 
rolled over every portion of the vast house, dancing. 

Many Hideously Disfigured. 

Dancing! Yes, the pillars of flame danced! To the multi- 
tude swept into eternity before the hurricane of flame and the 
few who were dragged out hideously disfigured and burned 
almost beyond all semblance of human beings it seemed indeed 
a dance of death. 

Withering, crushing, consuming all in its path, forced on as 
though by the power of some mighty blow pipe, impelled by 



( 



OTHER DISASTERS 289 

the fearful drafts that directed the fiery furnace outward into 
the auditorium instead of upward into the great flues con- 
structed to meet just such an emergency, the sea of fire burned 
itself out. There was little or nothing in the construction of 
the building itself for it to feed upon, and it fell back of its 
own weight to the stage, where it roared and raged like some 
angry demon. 

• And those great flues that supposedly gave the palatial 
Iroquois increased safety ! Barred and grated, battened down 
with heavy timbers they resisted the terrific force of the blast 
itself. There they remained intact the next day. Anxiety 
to throw open the palace of pleasure to the public before the 
builders had time to complete in detail their Herculean task 
had resulted in converting it into a veritable slaughter pen. 

Chamber Of Horrors. 

"Mr. Bluebeard's" chamber of horrors, lightly depicted in 
satire to settings of gold and color, wit and music, had evolved 
within a few minutes into an actuality. Chamber of horrors 
indeed — grim, silent, smoldering and sending upon high the 
fearful odor of burning flesh. 

Policemen and firemen, hardened to terrible sights, crept 
into the smoldering sepulchre only to turn back sickened by 
the sight that met their eyes. Tears and groans fell from 
them and they were unnerved as they gazed upon the scene of 
carnage. Some gave way and were themselves the subjects 
of deep concern. It was a scene to wring tears from the very 
stones. No words can adequately describe it. 

Perhaps the best description of that quarter hour of carnage 
and the sense of horror when the seared, scorched sepulchre 
was entered for the removal of the dead and dying is found in 



290 OTHER DISASTERS 

the words of the veteran descriptive writer. Mr. Ben H. Atwell, 
who was present from the beginning to the end of the holo- 
caust, and after visiting the deadly spot in the gray dawn 
of the following day wrote his impressions as follows : 

"Where at 3:15 one day, beauty and fashion and the 
happy amusement seeker thronged the palatial playhouse to 
fall a few moments later before a deadly blast of smoke and 
flame sweeping over all with irresistible force, the dawn of the 
last day of the passing year found confusion, chaos and an all- 
pervading sense of the awful. It seemed to radiate the chill- 
ing, depressing volume from the streaked, grime-covered walls 
and the flame-licked ceilings overhead. Against this fearful 
background the few grim firemen or police, moving silently 
about the ruins, searching for overlooked dead or abandoned 
property, loomed up like fitful ghosts. 

Wave Of Flame Greets Audience. 

"The progress of their noiseless and ghastly quest proved 
one circumstance survivors are too unsettled to realize. With 
the opening of the stage door to permit the escape of the 
members of the ']\lr. Bluebeard' company and the breaking 
of the skylight above the flue-like scene loft that tops the 
stage, the latter was converted into a furnace through which 
a tremendous draft poured like a blow pipe, driving billows 
of flame into the faces of the terrified audience. With exits 
above the parquet floor simply choked up with the crushed 
bodies of struggling victims, who made the first rush for 
safety, the packed hundreds in balcony and gallery faced fire 
that moved them up in waves. 

"With a swirl that sounded death, the thin bright sheet 
of fire rolled on from stage to rear wall. It fed on the rich box 



OTHER DISASTERS 291 

curtains, seized upon the sparse veneer of subdued red and 
green decorations spread upon wall, ceiling and balcony fac- 
ings. It licked the fireproof materials below clean and rolled 
on with a roar. Over seat tops and plush rail cushions it 
sped. Then it snufifed out, having practically nothing to feed 
upon save the tangled mass of wood scene frames, batons and 
pamt-soaked canvas on the stage. 

"There firemen were directing streams of water that poured 
over the premises in great cascades in volume, aggregating 
many tons. A few streams were directed about the body of 
the house, where vagrant tongues of flame still found material 
on which to feed. Silence reigned — the silence of death, but 
none realized the appalling story behind the awful calm. 

"The stampede that followed the first alarm, a struggle in 
which most contestants were women and children, fighting 
with the desperation of death, terminated with the sudden 
sweep of the sea of flames across the body of the house. Tlie 
awful battle ended before the irresistible hand of death, which 
fell upon contestants and those behind alike. Somehow those 
on the main floor managed to force their way out. Above, 
where the presence of narrower exits, stairways that precip- 
itated the masses of humanity upon each other and the natural 
air current for the billows of flame to follow, spelled death to 
the occupants of the two balconies, the wave of flame, smoke 
and gas smote the multitude. 

Drop Where They Stand. 

"Dropping where they stood, most of the victims were con- 
sumed beyond recognition. Some who were protected from 
contact with the flames by masses of humanity piled upon 
them escaped death and were dragged out later by rescuers, 



292 OTHER DISASTERS 

suffering all manner of injury. The majority, however, who 
beheld the indescribably terrifying spectacle of the wave of 
death moving upon them through the air died then and there 
without a moment for preparation. Few survived to tell the 
tale. The blood-curdling cry of mingled prayers and curses, 
of pleas for help and meaningless shrieks of despair died away 
before the roar of the fire and the silence fell that greeted the 
firemen upon their entry. 

"Survivors describe the situation as a parallel of the condi- 
tion at ]\Iartinique when a wave of gas and fire rolled down 
the mountain side and destroyed everything in its path. Here, 
however, one circumstance was reversed, for the wave of death 
leaped from below and smote its victims, springing from the 
very air beneath them. 

Man Heroes Are Developed. 

"In a few minutes it was all over — all but the weeping. In 
those few minutes obscure people had evolved into heroes ; 
staid business men drove out patrons to convert their stores 
into temporary hospitals and morgues ; others converted their 
trucks and delivery wagons into improvised ambulances; 
stocks of drugs, oils and blankets were showered upon the 
police to aid in relief work and a corps of physicians and sur- 
geons sufficient to the needs of an army had organized. 

"Rescues little short of miraculous were accomplished and 
life and limb were risked by public servants and citizens with 
no thought of personal consequences. Public sympathy was 
thoroughly aroused long before the extent of the horror was 
known and before the sickening report spread throughout the 
city that the greatest holocaust ever known in the history of 
theatricals had fallen upon Chicago. 



OTHER DISASTERS 293 

"While the streets began to crowd for blocks around with 
weeping and heartbroken persons in mortal terror because of 
knowledge that loved ones had attended the performance, 
patrol wagons, ambulances and open wagons hurried the in- 
jured to hospitals. Before long they were called upon to per- 
form the more grewsome task of removing the dead. In 
wagon loads the latter were carted away. Undertaking estab- 
lishments both north, south and west of the river throew open 
their doors. 

Dead Piled In Heaps. 

"Piled in windows in the angle of the stairway wdiere the 
second balcony refugees were brought face to face and in a 
death struggle with the occupants of the first balcony, the dead 
covered a space fifteen or twenty feet square and nearly seven 
feet in depth. All were absolutely safe from the fire itself 
when they met death, having emerged from the theater proper 
into the separate building containing the foyer. In this great 
court there was absolutely nothing to burn and the doors were 
only a few feet away. There the ghastly pile lay, a mute mon- 
ument to the powers of terror. Above and about towered 
shimmering columns and facades in polished marble, whose 
cold and unharmed surfaces seemed to bespeak contempt for 
human folh^ In that portion of the Iroquois structure the 
only physical evidences of damages were a few windows 
broken during the excitement. 

"Searchers gazing down from the heights of the upper bal- 
cony surveyed the scene of death below with horror stamped 
upon their faces. Fire had left its terrifyig light in a color- 
less, garish monotony that suggests the burned-out crater of 
an extinct volcano." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
THE BOYERTOWN FIRK 

MORE THAN 170 KILLED IN TERRIBLE THEATRE 

FIRE. 

A catastrophe horrifying in its details, which occurred on 
January 14, 1908, killed more than 170 women and children 
and injured nearly three score, many of them fatally. A ma- 
jority of the dead were members of leading families of the 
town, the entertainment being given under the auspices of St. 
John's Lutheran church. 

While the Scottish Reformation was being produced in 
Rhoades Opera House by Mrs. Monroe, of Washington, a 
tank used in a moving picture scene exploded. Immediately 
there was a wild rush for the exits of the building. Men en- 
deavored to still the panic, but their voices could not be heard 
above the shrieks and screams of the terrified women and 
children, who composed the greater part of the audience. 

The cries for help of those who were penned within the 
walls of the blazing structure could be heard above the roaring 
flames. It seemed as though the entire audience made a rush 
for the exits the moment the explosion occurred. In their at- 
tempt to quiet the great crowd, those on the stage accidentally 
upset the coal oil lamps used as the footlights. The burning 
oil scattered in all directions, and the lamps which were used 
to light the opera house exploded. 

In the mad rush a section of the floor gave way, precipi- 
tating scores of persons to the basement. It was scarcely five 
minutes from the time of the explosion of the tank until the 
entire heart of the structure seemed a roaring furnace. There 



OTHER DISASTERS 295 

was a scramble for the stairway leading from the balcony, and 
scores of women and children were knocked down and 
trampled upon, many of them doubtless being crushed to 
death. 

At least fifty persons realizing that exits by the stairway 
meant almost certain death risked their lives by jumping from 
the windows. Limbs were broken and skulls were crushed 
by this daring method of escape. 

In the meantime a relief corps was at work at the entrance 
to the theatre endeavoring to release those who were wedged 
in the doorway. Many persons who otherwise might have 
escaped from the furnace of flame were held in check by the 
jam at the doors. As the flames made their way toward the 
front of the building women were seen to clasp their hands 
and fall back into the flames. 

Victims' Faces mutilated. 

Once the doorways were cleared the rescuers dragged many 
women and children from the stairways leading to the balcony. 
Some of them were so badly injured that they died before 
reaching a temporary hospital. Skulls were crushed and the 
faces of some of the victims were so horribly mutilated that 
they were barely recognizable. In one instance the skull of 
a child apparently ten years of age was crushed almost to a 
jelly. 

Until the ruins were searched there was no way of accur- 
ately estimating the dead and injured. 

The theatre was still smoldering and frenzied parents re- 
fused to leave the scene despite the danger to their lives of fall- 
ing walls. The fire apparatus of the town failed, and the 
flames were left to burn themselves out. 



296 OTHER DISASTERS 

ly many cases entire families were wiped out. 

Scores of persons who were in the balcony jumped from the 
windows and sustained fractured limbs and skulls. It is 
almost certain not a vestige of the bodies of the dead will ever 
be found. Assistance was asked from Pottstown, but before 
the fire apparatus from that city reached this place the entire 
center of the structure was a roaring furnace. 

Had the women and children heeded the w^arning of the 
cooler heads in the audience the horrible loss of life might 
have been avoided. The flames spread rapidly and communi- 
cated to the other parts of the theater. Men, women and 
children rushed from the exits and children were trampled 
upon and maimed. 

Mothers' Shrieks Pitiful. 

The shrieks of mothers who had rushed to the scene as soon 
as they learned of the fire was pitiful. As the night wore on 
the crowds surrounding the building grew to such proportions 
that it w^as almost impossible for the police force, which had 
been augmented by a score of men from Pottstown and Read- 
ing, to keep the people back. One woman who said she had 
lost her entire family in the theater was with difficulty re- 
strained from throwing herself into the roaring flames. 

A special train from Reading l^earing physicians and nurses 
reached here, but there was little for them to do, as the injured 
who had dashed themselves to the pavement had been cared 
for by local physicians, assisted by the Pottsville relief corps. 
A few minutes after midnight the rear wall of the theater col- 
lapsed. The flames broke out anew and those who had vainly 
hoped to be able to find the bodies of their children turned 
away in despair. 



OTHER DISASTERS 297 

It is estimated that at least seventy-five persons were in- 
jured by being trampled upon on the stairway or in jumping 
from the windows. Of this number at least a score were 
fatally injured ; at least half a dozen succumbed to their in- 
juries after being hurried to one of the temporary hospitals. 

Three children, ranging in ages from eight to twelve years, 
and one woman, who were dragged from the building had 
been trampled almost to a pulp, the skull of one of the children 
had been crushed as though an egg shell. 

Boyertown has a population of about 2,500 and is located 
abovtt midway between Pottstown and Reading. 

When nightfall put a stop to the work of recovering the 
dead from the ruins of the Rhoades Opera House, the scene of 
the disaster, the official roll of victims numbered more than 
170. 

Women And Girls Die. 

It is the belief of those wdio had charge of the work that all 
of the dead have been removed. 

The ratio of women and girls to men and boys is about 
nine to one. 

The bodies, dislodged by pickaxes, were so badly burned 
that it is said that not half the victims will be identified. 
By noon the rescuers became thoroughly exhausted, and for a 
time the work came almost to a standstill. The Philadelphia 
& Reading Railway Company sent two carloads of laborers 
and carpenters to the town, and then the bodies were removed 
at the rate of two every five minutes. 

After the explosion and the fire caused by the oil footlights 
the audience made for the door. Those who did reach the 
front entrance found it jammed with people who were fighting 



298 OTHER DISASTERS 

and snneking to get out. One of the double doors had been 
bolted shut so as to better enable the tickettaker to take up 
tickets. Not more than two persons could pass this door at 
one time, and after the first half dozen got through the nar- 
row passage it became clogged with a struggling mass of 
humanity. 

Flames Creep On People. 

All this time the flames were creeping toward the mass of 
people, who were frantically shrieking and fighting to get out. 
The theatre was soon a furnace, and, to make the situation 
still more disheartening, some of the firemen indulged too 
deeply in liquor and became involved in fights. The State 
constabulary checked the row. 

Bearing up bravely under the awful blow it received in the 
destruction of the Opera House by fire this borough came to 
a full realization of the fact that one-fifteenth of its population 
was wiped out of existence. 

The scenes at the morgue were heartrending. Children of 
tender years were called upon to assist in making the identifi- 
cation of parents who went to death in the fire. Feeble men 
and women were racked with anguish as they came upon 
some distorted body in which they recognized the form of a 
lost son or daughter. 

Jury to View Bodies. 

Before any of the bodies were removed from the morgue, 
Coroner Strasser empaneled a jury to view the bodies and the 
scene of the devastating fire and to sit at the inquest. 

After the jury had been sworn in it made an inspection 
of the ruins and went through the morgues. 



OTHER DISASTERS 299 

Coroner Strasser opened an office in the Mansion House 
and established a bureau of information where he granted 
death certificates and signed insurance papers. In this con- 
nection the representatives of scores of insurance compaines 
were in Boyertown paying ofif claims as fast as they were pre- 
sented. 

Overcome by Fumes. 

Building Inspector Heckman, of Reading, who made an in- 
spection of the opera house, said : 

'Tn my opinion, the people in the hall were overcome by the 
fumes from the tank used in connection with the tableau 
lights, and simply could not help themselves. A man told me 
that he reached in the doorway to assist a woman from the 
building and that he was nearly overcome by gas. He was 
not in the hall when the fire started." 

Awakes To Terror. 

Boyertown did not awake to the terrible results of the disas- 
ter until days afterward. The town was dazed and did not 
realize the enormity of the terrible calamity that had befallen 
it until several days afterward. 

Then the people awoke, and when the dead were being car- 
ried to the cemeteries in the funeral cars, the grief came home, 
and when the bereaved ones went home to find children and 
wives no longer there, the full horror of the fire struck them. 

It was then that hearts broke. Boyertown v^as in mourn- 
ing, yes, and will be in mourning for years to come. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE SLOCUM DISASTER. 

MORE THAN 1,000 WOMEN AND CHILDREN 
DROWNED OR BURNED TO DEATH. 

Terrible beyond all description was the disaster of the 
"General Slociim," in the East River, New York, in which 
more than 1,000 women and children on a Sunday School ex- 
cursion lost their lives. 

It was a balmy summer day, the 15th of June, 1904, when 
the steamer left its dock, crowded with passengers from the 
St. Marks Lutheran Church, who were to picnic at Locust 
Grove, Long Island. It was a merry crowd of persons on 
board. There was music and merry making. 

Suddenly as the boat passed Hell Gate, smoke was to hi 
seen in the rear part of the boat. Nothing was thought of this 
at first, it being supposed that the smoke came from the engine 
rooms. 

Flame Shoots Up. 

A slender tongue of flame shot up from the back of the boat. 
There was an instant of breathless silence among those who 
saw the blaze, and then a terrified shriek of "fire." 

It was fire, but no one knew how serious it was until later. 
Even the captain of the steamer. William \'on Shaicks. 
thought that it did not amount to much and instead of trying 
to beach his boat kept on up the river towards North Brothers 
Island. 

But the women and children l)ccame panic stricken. They 
rushed madly about the decks of the vessel, crying for aid. 
The boatmen opened the life preserver bins and told the people 
aboard to help themselves. 



OTHER DISASTERS 301 

The flames gained rapidly, especially as the boat was under 
full speed, and swept over the vessel. Women screamed in 
desperation. The captain then tried to put in to shore, but it 
was too late. The hot breath of the flame was sweeping across 
the deck and the passengers, huddled in one part of the ship, 
were struggling to get as far away from it as possible. 

The smoke choked them. The hot blaze was maddening. 
Many hurled themselves into the river, despite the efforts of 
the deck hands to keep them aboard. 

Before the boat could be beached the flames had gained 
such headway that even those who kept their heads and had 
not leaped overboard before it was necessary, found that their 
only escape was in jumping into the water. 

Lead In Life Preservers. 

Those who had been able had secured life preservers. There 
was not nearly enough to go around. It would have been 
better if there had been none at all than those that were on the 
vessel, for it was afterward found that they contained lead on 
the inside or were otherwise useless. 

Women maddened with fear of burning to death braved the 
horror of drowning and threw themselves overboard. Those 
who had children with them threw their babes overboard 
first and then leaped after them. 

The scene on the boat was that of a mad house. More than 
1,000 women and children ran about the deck and leaped and 
cried out in terror. The cries were maddening and only stirred 
the panic stricken ones to more direful action. 

One woman fell on her knees and prayed to God to save the 
little ones. 



302 OTHER DISASTERS 

"It matters not if we older ones perish," she cried, "but save 
the children." 

But the children were not spared. They were consumed by 
the flames by the scores and yet other scores were drow-ned. 

Leap Into Water. 

Relying on the life preservers, women leaped into the river, 
many of them with babes in their arms. But they were en- 
snared by the cupidity of man. Instead of buoying them up, 
the life preservers bore them down. 

Choking and struggling in the water, the women cried for 
aid. But there was none at hand to help them. There was a 
few seconds of agonizing fight against the waters and then the 
heads dropped below the surface of the river, to be seen no 
more until the grim and gastly corpses were washed ashore. 

Tugs hurried to the scene of the disaster, the crew-s eager 
to help. But when the boats arrived there were few that 
could be aided. The great majority had been drowned in the 
river or had perished in the flames, through remaining on 
board the boat. 

Many that could sw^im, however, were picked up from the 
river. These were mostly men. 

Search River For Dead. 

For days and days relatives of the dead searched the river 
banks for the corpses of their loved ones. Many were washed 
ashore, but there were still many that were never recovered. 
The anxious fathers and sisters and mothers surrounded every 
wharf in the East River awaiting the announcement that a 
body had been found. When one w^as found there were hun 
dreds to view it, hoping that it might be a relative of theirs. 



OTHER DISASTERS 303 

For days and days this was kept up, until all hope that any 
more bodies would be washed up to the docks* was aban- 
doned. Tugs searched the river for floaters, but finally even 
this search was given up. 

Burying The Dead. 

It was then the time to bury their dead. Day after day New 
York was one vast funeral procession. The streets were lined 
with hearses. Finally it was over. The relatives had buried 
their dead or had given up hope of finding them. 

Then began the investigation which ended in the chief offi- 
cial of the steamer being sentenced to prison. But there were 
many implicated that were responsible, that were never 
brought to justice. There were rotten life preservers on the 
boat. There were life preservers filled with lead. 

Hundreds paid the penalty for their trust in the boat officials 
that they would be carried safely to their destination. They 
had planned on a day of pleasure. They found a day of horror 
and death. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

OTHER HOLOCAUSTS. 

TERRIBLE CALA^IITIES HAPPENING THROUGH 
FIRE AND PANIC. 

Since the time that civilized man first met with fellow man 
to enjoy the work of the primitive playwright, humanity has 
paid a toll of human life for its amusement. Oftener than 
history tells the tiny flicker of a tongue of flame has thrown 
a gay, laughing audience into a wild, struggling mob, and 
instead of the curtain which would have been rung down on 
the comedy on the stage, a pall of black smoke covered the 
struggles of the living and dying. 

Of all the theater disasters of history, none ever occurred 
in America equaling the loss of life in the Iroquois fire. 
Only two in the history of the civilized world surpass it. 
There have been fires accompanied by greater loss of life, but 
not among theater audiences. 

Many Children Killed. 

But the grand total of persons killed in theater holocausts 
is large and the saddest comment on this list is that most of 
the victims were from holiday audiences of women and chil- 
dren. Lehman's playhouse in St. Petersburg, Russia, was 
destroyed in Christmas week, 1836, and 700 persons lost their 
lives. The Ring theater, \'icnna, Austria, was destroyed Dec. 
8, 1881, and 875 persons lost their lives. These are the only 
theater holocausts whose deadliness surpasses that of the Iro- 
quois. 

To all have been the same accompaniments of panic, futile 
struggle and suffocation. In the last century with the intro- 



OTHER DISASTERS. 305 

duction of the modern style of playhouse, these fatal fires have 
increased. The annals of the stage- are replete with dark pages 
that cause the tragedy of the mimic drama depicted behind the 
footlights to pale and shrivel into comparative nothingness. 

Perhaps it is a fatal legacy from the time when civilized 
society gathered in its marble coliseums and amphitheaters to 
witness the mortal combat of human soldiers or the death 
struggles of Christians waging a vain battle against famished 
wild beasts. Whatever it may be, death has always stalked as 
the dread companion of the god of the muse and drama. 

An English statistician published six years ago a list of fires 
at places of public entertainment in all countries in the preced- 
ing century. He showed that there had been 1,100 conflagra- 
tions, with 10,000 fatalities, and he apologized for the incom- 
pleteness of his figures. Another authority says that in the 
twelve years from 1876 to 1888 not less than 1,700 were killed 
in theater disasters in Brooklyn, Nice, Vienne, Paris, Exeter 
and Oporto, and that in every case nearly all the victims were 
dead within ten minutes from the time the smoke and flame 
from the stage reached the auditorium. As in the Iroquois 
fire, it was mainly in the balconies and galleries that death 
held its revels. 

Havoc at Rome. 

Fire wrought havoc at Rome in the Amphitheater in the 
year 14 B. C, and the Circus ]\Iaximus was similarly de- 
stroyed three times in the first century of the Christian era. 
Three other theaters were razed by flames in the same period, 
and Pompeii's was burned again almost two centuries later, 
but the exact loss of life is not recorded in either instance. 



306 OTHER DISASTERS. 

The Greek playhouses, built of stone in open spaces, were 
never endangered by fire. 

No theaters were built on the modern plan until in the 
sixteenth century in France, and not until the seventeenth did 
any catastrophe worthy of record occur. When Shakespeare 
lived plays were generally produced in temporary structures, 
sometimes merely raised platforms in open squares, and it 
was after his time that scenic effects began to be amplified and 
the use of illuminants increased. Thus it was that dangers, 
both to players and auditors, were vastly increased. 

In the Teatro Atarazanas, in Seville, Spain, many people 
were killed and injured at a fire in 1615. The first conflagra- 
tion of this kind in England worth noting happened in 1672, 
when the Theater Royal, or Drury Lane, standing on the site 
of the playhouse in which ''^Ir. Bluebeard" was produced be- 
fore it was brought to Chicago, was burned to the ground. 
Sixty other buildings were destroyed, but no loss of life is 
recorded. 

210 Lost Lives. 

Two hundred and ten people lost their lives and the whole 
Castle of Amalienborg, in Copenhagen, was laid in ashes in 
1689 from a rocket that ignited the scenery in the opera house. 
Eighteen persons perished at the theater in the Kaizergracht, 
Amsterdam, in 1772, and six years later the Teatro Colisseo, 
at Saragossa, Spain, went up in flames and seventy-seven 
lives were lost. The governor of the province was among the 
victims. Twenty players were sufTocated in the burning of the 
Palais Royal in Paris in 1781. 

In the nineteenth century there were twelve theater fires 
marked by great loss of life, and the first of these occurred in 



OTHER DISASTERS. 307 

the United States. At Richmond on the day after Christmas 
in 1811, a benefit performance of "Agnes and Raymond, or 
the Bleeding Nun," was being given, and the theater was 
iilled with a wealthy and fashionable audience. The governor 
of Virginia, George W. Smith, ex-United States Senator Ven- 
able, and other prominent persons were in the audience and 
Avere numbered among the seventy victims. The last act was 
on when the careless hoisting of a stage chandelier with 
lighted candles set fire to the scenery. Most of those killed met 
death in the jam at the doors. 

The Lehman Theater and circus in St. Peterburg was the 
scene of a fire in 1836, in which 800 people perished. A stage 
lamp hung high ignited the roof, a panic ensued, and there 
was such a mad rush that most of the people slew each other 
trying to get out. Those not trampled to death were inciner- 
ated by the fire that rapidly enveloped the temporary wooden 
building. 

Lamp Upset. 

A lighted lamp, upset in a wing, caused a stampede in the 
Royal Theater, Quebec, June 12, 1846, and 100 people were 
either burned or crushed into lifelessness. The exits were 
poor and the playhouse was built of combustible material. 
Less than a year later the Grand Ducal Theater at Carlsruhe, 
Baden, Germany, was destroyed by a fire, due to the careless 
lighting of the gas in the grand ducal box. Most of the 150 
victims were suffocated. Between fifty and one hundred peo- 
ple met a fiery death in the Teatro degli Aquidotti at Leghorn, 
Italy, June 7, 1857. Fireworks were being used on the stage 
and a rocket set fire to the scenery. 

One of the most serious fires from the standpoint of loss of 



308 OTHER DISASTERS. 

life was that in the Jesuit church of Santiago, South America, 
in 1863. Fire broke out in the building during service. A 
panic started and the efforts of the priests to calm the im- 
mense crowd and lead them quietly from the edifice w^ere vain. 
The few doors became jammed with a struggling mass of 
men, women and children. The next day 2.000 bodies were 
taken from the church, most of them suffocated or trampled 
to death. 

Brooklyn Theater Fire. 

The Brooklyn theater fire was long memorable in this coun- 
try. Songs, funeral marches and poems without number were 
written commemorating the sad event. Vastly different from 
the Iroquois horror, most of the victims of the Brooklyn the- 
ater were burned beyond recognition. At Greenwood ceme- 
tery in Brooklyn there now stands a marble shaft to the un- 
identified victims of the holocaust. 

Kate Claxton was playing "The Two Orphans" at Conway's 
Theater in Brooklyn on the night of Dec. 5, 1876. In the last 
scene of the last act Miss Claxton, as Louise, the poor blind 
girl, had just lain down on her pallet of straw, when she saw 
above her in the flies a tiny flame. An actor of the name of 
Murdoch, on the stage with her, saw it about the same time, 
and was so excited that he began to stammer his lines. Miss 
Claxton tried to reassure him and partly succeeded. 

Theater on Fire. 

Then the audience realized that the theater w'as on fire, and 
a movement began. The star, with Mr. Murdoch and Mrs. 
Farren, joined hands, walked to the footlights and begged the 
audience to go out in an orderly manner. "You see, we are 



OTHER DISASTERS. 309 

between you and the fire," said Miss Claxton. The people 
were proceeding quietly, when a man's voice shouted, "It is 
time to be out of this," and every one seemed seized with a 
frenzy. The main'entrance doors opened inwardly, and there 
was such a jam that these could not be manipulated. 

The crowds from the galleries rushed down the stairways 
and fell or jumped headlong into the struggling mass below. 
Of the 1,000 people in the theater 297 perished. They were 
either burned, suffocated or trampled to death. The actor 
Murdoch was one of the victims. 

That same year, 1876, a panic resulted in the Chinese the- 
ater of San Francisco from a cry of fire. A lighted cigar 
which someone playfully dropped into a spectator's coat pock- 
et caused a smell of burning wool. The audience became 
panic stricken and rushed madly for the exits. At the time 
there were about 900 Americans in the auditorium, and of this 
number one-quarter were seriously injured. The fire itself 
was of no consequence. 

The destruction of the Ring theater at Vienna, Dec. 8, 1881, 
remains the greatest horror of the kind in the history of civili- 
zation. It was preceded on March 23 of the same year, b}' 
the burning of the Municipal theater in Nice, Italy, caused 
by an explosion of gas, and in which between 150 and 200 
people perished miserably, but the magnitude of the Menna 
holocaust made the world forget Nice for the time. The 
feast of the Immaculate Conception was being celebrated by 
the Viennese, and Offenbach's "Lees Contes d'Hoft'man." an 
opera bouffe, was the play. The audience numbered 2,500, 

Fire was suddenly observed in the scenery, and a wild panic 
started. An iron curtain, designed for just such emergencies, 
was forgotten, and the flames, which might thus have been 



310 OTHER DISASTERS. 

confined to the stage, spread furiously through the entire 
building. The scene was changed from light-hearted revelry, 
with gladsome music, to one of lurid horror. 

The exits from the galleries were long and tortuous and 
quickly became choked. As in the Iroquois theater fire, those 
who had occupied the gallery seats were the ones who lost 
their lives. But few escaped from the galleries. The great 
majority of the spectators were burned beyond recognition by 
their nearest relatives. One hundred and fifty were so charred 
that they were buried in a common grave, and the city's 
mourning was shared by all the world. 

The next fire of this nature to attract the world's attention 
and sympathy was the destruction of the Circus Ferroni at 
Berditscheff, Russian Poland. Four hundred and thirty peo- 
ple were killed and eighty mortally injured. Many children 
were crushed and suffocated in the jam, and horses and other 
trained animals perished by the score. This was on Jan. 13, 
1883, and the origin of the conflagration was traced to a 
stableman who smoked a cigarette while lying in a heap of 
straw. 

TWO GREAT PARISIAN HORRORS. 

The burning of the Opera Comique in Paris, May 25, 1887, 
was a spectacular horror. Here again an iron curtain that 
would have protected the audience was not lowered. The 
first act of "Mignon" was on, when the scenery was observed 
to be ablaze. The upper galleries were transformed into in- 
fernos, in which men knocked other men and women down 
and trampled them in their eagerness to save themselves, 
while the flames reached out and enveloped them all. 

Many of the actxjrs and actresses escaped only in their cos- 



OTHER DISASTERS. 311 

tumes, and some rushed nude into the streets. The scenes in 
the thoroughfares where men and women in tights and ball 
dresses and men in gorgeous theatrical robes mingled with the 
naked, and the dead and dying were strewn about, made a 
picture fantastically terrible. The official list of the dead was 
seventy-five, but many others died from the fire's effects. 

Suffocated by Smoke. 

The theater at Exeter, England, burned Sept. 5, 1887, was 
ignited from gas lights, and so much smoke filled the edifice 
in a short time that nearly 200 were suffocated in their seats. 
They were found sitting there afterwards, just as though they 
were still watching the play. This was the eleventh, and the 
Oporto fire the twelfth of the big conflagrations of the country. 
One hundred and seventy dead were taken from the ruins 
of the Portuguese playhouse after the flames which destroyed 
it on the evening of March 31, 1888, had been subdued. 
Many sailors and marine soldiers in the galleries used knives 
to kill persons standing in their way, and scores of the victims 
were found with their throats cut. 

Ten years after the Opera Comique fire occurred the great- 
est of all Parisian horrors, the destruction by flames of the 
Charity Bazaar, May 4, 1897. Members of the nobility, and 
even royalty, were among the victims. All of fashionable 
Paris were under the roof of a temporary wooden edifice 
known to visitors to the exposition of 1889 as "Old Paris." 
The annual bazaar in the interest of charity had always been 
one of the most imposing of the spring functions. The wealthy 
and distinguished, titled and modish were there in larger num- 
bers than on any previous occasion. 

The fire broke out with a suddenness that so dazed every- 



312 OTHER DISASTERS. 

one that the small chance of escape from the flimsy structure 
was made even less. Duchesses, marquises, countesses, baron- 
esses, and grand dames joined in the mad rush for the exits 
The men present are said to have acted in a particularly cow- 
ardly manner, knocking down and trampling upon women and 
children. The death list of more than 100 included the Duch- 
esses d'Alencon and De St. Didier, the ]\Iarquis de Maison, 
and three barons, three baronesses, one count, eleven count- 
esses, one general, five sisters of charity and one mother supe- 
rior. The Duchess -d'Alencon was the favorite sister of the 
Empress of Austria and had been a fiance of the mad King 
Ludwig of Bavaria. The Duchess d'Uzes was badly burned. 
The shock of the news and the death of his niece, the Duchess 
d'Alencon, accounted for the death on May 7 of the Due 
d'Aumale. 

Fire Killed Thirty. 

The Gaiety Theater in Milwaukee on November 5, 1869, 
furnished more than thirty victims to the fire fiend, but only 
two of these were burned to death. The Central Theater in 
Philadelphia was destroyed April 28, 1892, and six persons 
perished. A panic occurred at the Front Street playhouse in 
Baltimore, December 27, 1895, among an audience composed 
entirely of Polish Jews. There was no fire, but a woman who 
had seen a bright light on the stage thought there was, and 
her cries caused a stampede that resulted in twenty-four 
deaths. 

Statisticians show that theaters as a rule do not attain an 
old age, but that their average life in all countries is but 
twenty-two and three-fourths years. In the United States the 
average is but eleven to thirteen years, and here almost a third 



OTHER DISASTERS. 313 

are destroyed before they have been built five years. More 
playhouses feed the flames just prior to and after than during 
performances, because of the added precautions of employes. 

Two deadly conflagrations occurred in New York in 1900. 
The first the Windsor hotel fire, which resulted in the death of 
80 persons. Fire broke out in the old hotel on Fifth avenue 
about midnight. With lightning rapidity the flames shot up 
the light and air shafts, filling the rooms with smoke and mak- 
ing them as light as day. The guests suddenly aroused from 
sleep became panic stricken. The fire department was unable 
to throw up ladders and give aid as fast as frightened faces 
appeared at the windows. The result was that many jumped 
to death. They were picked up dead and dying in the streets. 
Others ran from their rooms into the fire-swept hallways and 
were burned to death. 

A short time later fire broke out one afternoon on the docks 
across the river from New York at Hoboken. The fire was 
on a pier piled high with combustible material. It burned 
like powder, spreading to the ocean liners tied to the pier and 
the efforts of the fire department were not effective in check- 
ing it. The cables which held the blazing vessels to the piers 
burned through and they drifted into the river, carrying fire 
and death among the shipping. Longshoremen unloading and 
loading the vessels jumped in panic into the river. Others 
found themselves cut off from both land and water by the 
flames on all sides and were burned like rats in a trap. It 
was estimated that 300 lives were lost. ]\Iany bodies were 
never recovered and others were found miles down the river. 

Property losses are seldom proportionate to the financial 
losses from fire. In the Iroquois theater fire the property loss 
was almost inconsequential, while at the burning of Moscow 



314 OTHER DISASTERS. 

by the Russians, Sept. 4, 1812, the property loss amounted to 
more than $150,000,000, while no lives were lost. 

Constantinople, with its squalid and crowded streets, has 
always been a fruitful spot for fires. They are of annual oc- 
currence and as the Turkish fire department is a travesty, are 
usually of considerable magnitude. The great fire of that 
city was in 1729, when 12,000 houses were destroyed and 
7,000 persons burned to death. Aug. 12, 1782, a three days' 
fire started in which 10,000 houses, 50 corn mills and 100 
mosques were burned and 100 lives lost. In February of the 
same year, 600 houses were burned, and in June 7,000 more. 
Fires are the best safeguards for Constantinople's health 

Great Britain has had comparatively few fires. In 1598 
one at Tiverton destroyed 400 houses and 33 lives. In 1854 
50 persons were killed at Gateshead. The great fire of London 
raged from Sept. 2 to 6, 1666. It began in a wooden build- 
ing in Pudding Lane and consumed the buildings on 436 acres, 
blotting out 400 streets, 13,200 houses, St. Paul's and 86 
other churches, 58 halls and all public buildings, three of the 
city gates and four stone bridges. The property loss was 
$53,652,500. while only six persons were killed. 

Nearly every large city of the Ignited States has had its 
great fire. That of Boston was on Nov. 9 and 10, 1872. Fire 
started at Summer and Kingston streets and 65 acres were 
burned over. The property loss was about $75,000,000 and 
there was no loss of life. 

The great fire in New York began in Merchant street, Dec. 
16, 1835. No lives were lost, but the property loss was $15,- 
000,000 and 52 acres were devastated, 530 buildings being de- 
stroyed. Ten years later a much smaller fire in the same dis- 
trict caused the death of 35 persons. 



OTHER DISASTERS. 315 

July 9, 1850, thirty lives were lost in Philadelphia, and 
February 8, 1865, twenty persons were killed by another fire. 
Large fires in that city have almost invariably been accom- 
panied by loss of life. 

As the result of a Fourth of July celebration in 1866, nearly 
half of Portland, Md., was swept away by fire. The property 
loss was $10,000,000, but there was no loss of life. In Sep- 
tember and October of 1871 forest fires raged in Wisconsin 
and Michigan. An immense territory was swept over and 
more than 1,000 persons lost their lives. 

The greatest fire of modern times was the one which started 
in Chicago, October 8, 1871. A strip through the heart of the 
city four miles long and a mile and a half wide, was burned 
over. The total loss was $196,000,000 and 250 persons lost 
their lives. By the fire 17,450 buildings were destroyed and 
98,860 persons were made homeless. Within four years the 
<?ntire burned district had been rebuilt. 

More Lives Lost. 

Fires in Chicago attended with loss of life have been of 
increasing frequency in the past few years. Fire in the Hen- 
ning & Speed building on Dearborn street, in 1900, caused four 
girls to lose their lives. Since it and before the Iroquois dis- 
aster have come : The St. Luke Sanitarium horror, 10 lives 
lost, 43 injured; the Doremus laundry explosfon, 8 lives lost; 
the American Glucose Sugar refinery blaze, 8 killed ; North- 
western railroad boiler explosion, 8 killed. Stock Yards boiler 
explosion, 18 killed, and about a year ago the Lincoln hotel 
fire, 14 visiting stockmen suffocated. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

JOHNSTOWN'S FATAL FLOOD. 

NEARLY 2,300 PERISH IN DEADLY TRAP— DELUGE 
REBOUNDS AND FIRE COMES. 

Previous to the year 1900 the Johnstown disaster was the 
most frightful calamity known in the history of the United 
States. It occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, at 12:45 p. m. 
Johnstown was situated in the Conemaugh Valley in Penn- 
sylvania. It was a town of 30,000 inhabitants. Above it in 
the mountains slept the waters of the Conemaugh Lake, a 
beautiful body of water three and a half miles long and one 
and a fourth miles wide, formed by building a dam across 
a deep gorge in the mountain. 

With not even a warning shout to apprise the inhabitants 
the dam gave way, and that great mass of water came leaping 
and tumbling down the valley to Johnstown, and the city 
with its inhabitants was drowned in a flood of angry waters. 
A\'hen the deluge subsided where had stood the homes of so 
many happy toilers there were but twisted and shapeless piles 
of drift-wood and the bodies of the dead and dying. 

Loss of Life Nearly 2,300. 
From the lake to Johnstown in a straight line was but two 
and a half miles, but following the winding valley the waters 
had to cover thirteen miles before they struck the town. But 
the flood moved with such terrific speed that within a few 
minutes after the breaking of the dam nearly 2,300 men, 
women and children were lying dead in the wreckage of the 
city ; millions of dollars' worth of property was destroyed, 
and thousands of people beggared. 



OTHER DISASTERS 317 

Hundreds of business buildings and residences were de- 
stroyed, and less than a score of structures composing the 
town were uninjured ; complete paralysis followed, and many 
said, as in the case of Galveston, the city would not be re- 
built ; hundreds were crazed by their sufiferings and nevei 
regained their reason ; thieves swarmed to the place and 
looted the bodies of the dead until the arrival of several thou- 
sand State troops put an end to the carnival of crime ; the 
impoverished survivors were cared for until they could get 
upon their feet again and relief pouring in from everywhere 
in the shape of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and 
thousands of carloads of supplies of all sorts, went to work. 

On the other side of the town is the Stony Creek, which 
gathers up its own share of the mountain rains and whirls 
them along toward Pittsburg. The awful flood caused by the 
sudden outpouring of the contents of the reservoir, together 
with the torrents of rain that had already swollen these 
streams to triple their usual violence, is supposed to be the 
cause of the sudden submersion of Johnstown and the drown- 
ing of so many of its citizens. The water, unable to find its 
way rapidly enough through its usual channels, piled up in 
overwhelming masses, carrying before it everything that ob- 
structed its onward rush upon the town. 

People Had Been Warned. 

The people of Johnstown had been warned of the impend- 
ing flood as early as 1 o'clock in the afternoon, but not a 
person living near the reservoir knew that the dam had given 
way until the flood swept the houses off their foundations 
and tore the timbers apart. Escape from the torrent was im- 
possible . The Pennsylvania railroad hastily made up trains 



318 OTHER DISASTERS 

to get as many people awa}' as possible, and thus saved many 
lives. 

Four miles below the dam lay the town of South Fork, 
where the South Fork itself empties into the Conemaugh 
River. The town contained about 2,000 inhabitants, and four- 
fifths of it was swept away. 

Four miles further down, on the Conemaugh River, which 
runs parallel with the main line of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road, was the town of Mineral Point. It had 800 inhabitants, 
90 per cent of the houses being on a flat and close to the 
river. Few of them escaped. 

Six miles further down was the town of Conemaugh, and 
here alone was there a topographical possibility of the spread- 
ing of the flood and the breaking of its force. It contained 
2,500 inhabitants and was wholly devastated. 

Woodvale, witli 2,000 people, lay a mile below Conemaugh, 
in the flat, and one mile further down were Johnstown and its 
cluster of sister towns, Cambria City, Conemaugh borough, 
with a total population of 30,000. 

On made ground, and stretching along right at the river 
verge, were the immense iron works of the Cambria Iron and 
Steel Company, which had' $5,000,000 invested in the plant. 

Flood Rebounds and Fire Comes. 

The gerat damage to Johnstown was largely due to the 
rebound of the flood after it had swept across. The wave 
spread against the stream of Stony Creek and passed over 
Kernsville to a depth of thirty feet in some places. 

The exact number of the victims of this dreadful disaster 
will never be known. Bodies were found beyond Pittsburg. 
The loss of property was about $10,000,000. 



OTHER DISASTERS 319 

All was over in a few moments' time. The flood rushed 
down the valley when released from its prison, swept earth, 
trees, houses and human beings before it, depositing the vast 
debris in front of the railroad bridge, which formed an im- 
passable barrier to the passage of everything except the vast 
agent of destruction — the flood — which overflowed it and 
passed on to wreak fresh vengeance below. 

Gorge at the Railroad Bridge. 

One of the most terrible sights was the gorge at the rail- 
road bridge. This gorge consisted of debris of all kinds 
welded into an almost solid mass. Here were the charred 
timbers of houses and the charred and mutilated remains 
of human beings. The fire at this point, which lasted until 
June 3 and had still some of its vitality left on the fifth, was 
one of the incidents of the Johnstown disaster that has be- 
come historic. 

When the great storm of Friday came the dam was again 
a source of uneasiness, and early in the morning the people 
of Johnstown were warned that the dam was weakening. At 
1 o'clock in the afternoon the resistless flood tore away the 
huge lumber boom on Stony Creek. This was the real be- 
ginning of the end. The enormous mass of logs was hurled 
down upon the doomed town. 

Had the logs passed a seven-arch bridge Johnstown might 
have been spared much of its horror. There were already 
dead and dying, and homes had already been swept away, 
but the dead could only h€ counted by dozens and not yet 
by thousands. Wedged fast at the bridge, the logs formed 
an impenetrable barrier. People had moved to the second 
floor of their houses and hoped that the flood might subside. 
There was no longer a chance to get away, and had they 



o ^ 




320 OTHER DISASTERS 

known what was in s_ore lOr them tne contemplation of their 
fate would have been enough to make them stark mad. 

Only a few hours had elapsed from the time of the break- 
ing of the lumber boom when the waters of Conemaugh Lake 
rushed down upon them. 

River Flows Through The City. 

The towering wall of water swooped down upon Johnstown 
with a force that carried everything before it. The blockade 
backed the water up into the town, and as there had to be an 
outlet somewhere the river made a new channel tlirough the 
heart of the lower part of the city. Again and again did 
the flood hurl itself against the bridge, and each wave car- 
ried with it houses, furniture and human beings. The bridge 
stood firm, but the railway embankment gave way, and fifty 
people were carried down to their deaths in the new break. 

It was now night, and darkness added to the terror of the 
situation. Then came flames to make the calamity all the 
more appalling. Hundreds of buildings had been piled up 
against the stone bridge. The inmates of but few of them 
had had time to escape. Just how many people were im- 
prisoned in that mass of wreckage may never be known, but 
the number was estimated at between 1,000 and 2,000. The 
wreckage was piled to a height of fifty feet, and suddenly 
flames began leaping up from the summit 

Shrieks and prayers from the unhappy beings imprisoned 
in the wrecked houses pierced the air, but little could be done. 
Men, women and children, held down by timbers, watched 
with indescribable agony the flames creep slowly toward them 
until the heat scorched their faces, and then they were slowly 
roasted to death. 



